Amir Chitayat – OpenMoves Inc.http://openmoves.com
The E-Marketing PeopleMon, 14 Aug 2017 20:09:45 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5Case Study: Ranking #1 for one of the Toughest Local Keywordshttp://openmoves.com/blog/case-study-local-seo-locksmith/
http://openmoves.com/blog/case-study-local-seo-locksmith/#respondThu, 08 Jun 2017 18:08:32 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=11004Case Study: Paragon Security selected OpenMoves to help them rank in cities where they may not be physically located. Now, Paragon holds the #1 local pack rank for “New York Locksmith,” has doubled organic traffic, and is generating qualified and valuable leads for under $25 each from AdWords.s has lead to heavy competition and aggressive, sometimes black-hat SEO for locksmith local searches.

]]>Locksmiths are a notoriously competitive local SEO category. Because of the service-area nature of the business, most locksmiths want to rank in cities where they may not be physically located. This has lead to heavy competition and aggressive, sometimes black-hat SEO for locksmith local searches.

The heavy local competition was especially true for Paragon Security, a reputable locksmith located in the heart of Manhattan – perhaps the world’s most competitive local SEO market. The combination of a competitive industry, competitive location, and commitment to white-hat SEO made Paragon’s local SEO project a challenge.

Paragon selected OpenMoves to tackle this challenge, starting a local SEO and PPC project in late 2014. Now, Paragon holds the #1 local pack rank for “New York Locksmith,” has doubled organic traffic, and is generating qualified and valuable leads for under $25 each from AdWords.

“OpenMoves has made a huge difference to my online lead generation!” says Yaniv Zohar, Paragon CEO. “Their multi-channel approach to SEO, PPC, and Social Media enabled me to gain top web presence in a very competitive market and increased my top line revenue.”

The SEO Strategy

In taking on the project, we knew it would be a long-term effort. There are many competitive locksmiths in New York, and rising to the top took a sustained effort for more than 2 years. There was no magic to the project, just by-the-book SEO done consistently and correctly.

Strong Technical Foundations. OpenMoves and Paragon were fortunate to partner with Lumina, a web design firm in New York. Working with Lumina, a new website was built for Paragon that was mobile responsive, secure, and very fast.

Rich Content. OpenMoves worked with Paragon to understand the full scope of the Paragon business, and build a website that covered a wide range of products and services. This enabled Paragon to rank and convert customers for much more than just “locksmith” queries.

Local Listings. OpenMoves deployed an aggressive local listings management program for Paragon, including a combination of Yext, MozLocal, BrightLocal, and manual listings management strategies. Careful review of NAP consistency helped Paragon thrive in local rankings, even when they moved to a new office location.

Multi-Channel Marketing. Supporting SEO was a strong social media marketing effort, email marketing campaign, PPC program, and some great business development work from the Paragon team. OpenMoves and Paragon worked together to create a consistent and findable brand across the web.

The PPC Strategy

The PPC landscape for locksmith and security keywords is very competitive. OpenMoves had to build a PPC strategy for Paragon that would drive profitable leads at scale, while dodging the worst of the market pressure.

Valuable Niches. OpenMoves worked closely with Paragon to identify Paragon’s most valuable services and products. Rather than focusing on the most obvious keywords, we found new and less competitive search spaces that allowed us to drive more profit.

Focus on Calls. When people need a locksmith, they don’t want to complete a form and wait. They want to call and get a response immediately, 24/7. Working with a call tracking vendor, OpenMoves created a PPC program focused on driving phone leads and accurately reporting the results.

Brand Presence. Paragon has always been dedicated to building a strong brand, and they wanted AdWords to help. OpenMoves created and managed a brand campaign that captured huge impression share and CTR. Rather than cannibalizing organic results as some might fear, Paragon has seen consistent YoY improvement in brand impressions both paid and organic.

The Social Media Strategy

With over a billion people on Facebook and Twitter combined, the challenge for Paragon on social media was to rise above the local competitive noise, connect with their target audience and drive measurable results.

Social Media Strategy: To succeed, we built a strategy that enabled Paragon to embrace the use of social media as a relationship building tool rather than just a marketing tool. OpenMoves used channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, G+, Pinterest and Instagram to build social bridges to the Paragon target market and better understand their preferences, behaviors, the technology uses, and pain points in real life. This understanding translates into the ongoing production of relevant, compelling content that speaks directly to the needs of the Paragon community, forging valuable relationships and a deeper cache of trust. This authentic and thoughtful approach to social media not only empowers all other marketing efforts, like SEO, PPC but also had a far-reaching impact on referrals and customer lifetime value.

The Results

#1 rank for many target keywords including “New York Locksmith”

100+% lift in organic traffic from 2014 to 2017

200+% lift in total traffic from 2014 to 2017

Total ranking keywords improved 5X since start of project

PPC conversion rate over 10% on average

PPC generates qualified leads for under $25 on average

PPC budget doubled since start of project

Conclusions

The most important theme of the Paragon project has been consistent progress over time. Paragon’s leadership team was effective at providing the support needed for SEO success and patient in allowing time to see results. The combination of strong client leadership, effective technical support, and a solid SEM and Social Media strategy has lead to Paragon being a market leader in one of the world’s most competitive local SEM spaces.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/case-study-local-seo-locksmith/feed/0OM3 Named Best Software for Small Business!http://openmoves.com/blog/openmoves-named-best-software-small-business-marketing-teams/
http://openmoves.com/blog/openmoves-named-best-software-small-business-marketing-teams/#respondFri, 10 Feb 2017 16:24:26 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=9724It is with great pleasure to announce that we have been named Best Software for Small-Business Marketing Teams, 2017, by G2 Crowd.

]]>It is with great pleasure to announce that we have been named Best Software for Small-Business Marketing Teams, 2017, by G2 Crowd. G2 Crowd, the world’s leading business software review platform, leverages more than 130,000 user reviews to drive better purchasing decisions.

Our customers love the horsepower of an email platform that has built-in marketing automation, deep segmentation tools, and integrates with a slew of major CRM and ecommerce platforms. And all of this comes with the support of a seasoned team to drive business results and enables customers to launch sophisticated, personalized campaigns.”

“OpenMoves has shown me how easy it is to keeping in touch with my fanbase all over the world. They do a first-class job at making it easy to connect with my email followers with easy-to-use but highly professional looking and eye catching templates.” -Toby T., OpenMoves Customer

Since 2014, G2 Crowd has recognized the best software products of a given year based on user reviews. On January 16, 2017, the site introduced its “Best Software 2017” lists, which highlight the top products for business professionals based on job function and company size, determined by reviews submitted by the products’ users.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/openmoves-named-best-software-small-business-marketing-teams/feed/0Seven (7) Email Marketing Resolutions For 2017http://openmoves.com/blog/seven-7-email-marketing-resolutions-2017/
http://openmoves.com/blog/seven-7-email-marketing-resolutions-2017/#respondMon, 02 Jan 2017 15:07:41 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=9440It’s 2017 and you wonder if there are still some simple things you can do to increase your email marketing performance this year. Here are 7 practical tips on getting more out of your email campaigns in 2017. #1: Send …

]]>It’s 2017 and you wonder if there are still some simple things you can do to increase your email marketing performance this year. Here are 7 practical tips on getting more out of your email campaigns in 2017.

#1: Send More

Businesses are concerned about sending too many emails, but how many is too many? You should send more relevant emails as long as your unsubscribe or complaint rate doesn’t increase above the baseline you had before you increased the frequency. If you send a monthly newsletter with four articles, try a biweekly with two articles, and then move to weekly. Don’t be concerned that the open rates and click-through percentages are lower; what counts is how many actual people opened, clicked and engaged. If the number is higher and the unsubscribe rate is the same, stay the course (learn more on email KPIs)

#2: Short is Better

We live in the age of quick soundbites and social media blurbs. So, get with it and keep it concise. Given that >50% of emails are read on a mobile device keep the subject line short but don’t forget to add a “read more” and link to your blog as well as big and chunky “Calls To Action” that can be clicked with “fat fingers”.

#3: Remail Works

Remailing is an easy strategy that is guaranteed to increase your open rates, engagement and conversions. Simply segment those that did not open your email in the past 48-72 hours and “remail” the same campaign to the non-openers with a difference subject line. We typically see a 25%-50% lift in campaign results. If you use the OpenMoves platform, we automated this feature for you (Learn More).

#4: Mobile First

Do you know that reading email remains the #1 activity on smartphones? Given the continuous increase in mobile readership it’s imperative that your readers will have a great experience reading your email campaigns on their smartphones without the need to continuously pinch in all directions as this reflects poorly on your brand and conversions. For 2017 PLEASE convert your old email templates to a mobile friendly responsive design that will change the layout of the template based on the size of the reader’s screen. You are guaranteed to see your engagement and conversions increase!

#5: Automate (or Work Harder)

Automated emails are the most effective strategies to improve ROI as they work while you sleep. Spend a little time upfront to create a “what-if-then” strategy for your email campaigns, it’s well worth the effort.

If you have a Lead Generation business, consider creating automation drips for welcome series, lead nurturing after someone filled a form, or behavioral emails based on lack of activity (did not open in 6 moths).

If you run an e-commerce business, a welcome email with a coupon will increase your sales at first touch, a birthday anniversary will make your client happy, while cart, browse and replenishment emails will increase your sales by >10%. Many of our e-commerce clients get >30% of their email revenue from these automated campaigns that generate money while you sleep (see automation examples).

#6: Batch and Blast – or NOT

Don’t “batch and blast” and treat all your email recipients the same. Segment your recipients based on purchase history (can be automated with most e-commerce sites) and send them relevant offers with product recommendations and promotions that relate to their past purchases. Build a “personal connection” and provide content that’s engaging and informative and carries the same voice across your social media and blogs. Newsletters should be full of case studies, best practices, industry updates and so on. If the CTAs lead to a landing page, make sure the page is “sticky” and concise with an easy-to-fill-out form.

#7: Leverage via AdWords and Facebook

Did you know you can leverage your emails lists in multi-channel marketing efforts? You can upload your emails lists (clients or prospects) to Google AdWords (called Customer Match) or Facebook and then remarket to them with branding banners. This feature allows you to remarket to people that have not been to your site! Another very effective method is to load the lists to Facebook or AdWords and use them to find “similar audiences” or “lookalikes” and then advertise to those that have similar interests to your email subscribers (good to segment VIP clients vs prospects).

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/seven-7-email-marketing-resolutions-2017/feed/0Case Study: How Autism Speaks Increased Donations By 15%http://openmoves.com/blog/donation-abandonment-how-nonprofit-autism-speaks-reengaged-24-of-prospective-donors/
http://openmoves.com/blog/donation-abandonment-how-nonprofit-autism-speaks-reengaged-24-of-prospective-donors/#respondSun, 04 Dec 2016 19:24:23 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=7843Did you know there’s a simple way to reengage prospects ready to donate to your cause? Wouldn’t you love the chance to increase your online donations by >10% with automation?? Cart abandonment emails is a strategy that has been used …

Did you know there’s a simple way to reengage prospects ready to donate to your cause? Wouldn’t you love the chance to increase your online donations by >10% with automation?? Cart abandonment emails is a strategy that has been used in the retail industry for years, but up until recently has not been as widely tested in the nonprofit industry. In their Light It Up Blue Campaign, Autism Speaks employed the use of LassoBack platform for “donation form abandonment,” to recapture interested donors who started to fill out the donation form and left before completing it.

Peter Pugliese, eFundraising Manager at Autism Speaks, said “We were able to recover thousands of dollars in potentially lost donation revenue using the donation abandonment tool.” The results proved that this strategy has much to offer the nonprofit industry in providing a method to increase donations and registrations by redirecting warm leads and previous visitors back to your site.

Why Did Autism Speaks Choose to Deploy a Donation Form Abandonment Campaign?

Autism Speaks created a beautiful and functional website giving visitors the ability to register and/or donate to be a part of the Light It Up Blue efforts to spread autism awareness and acceptance. The site received many visitors and generated interest with members of the autism community and beyond. While previous Light It Up Blue campaign results were adequate, Autism Speaks wanted to increase donations by reestablishing rapport with visitors who did not complete the donation forms on their site. Utilizing LassoBack technology from OpenMoves, they implemented the functionality on their site to reengage donation form abandoners with friendly, timely and helpful email messages.

How Does a Donation Form Abandonment Campaign Work?

The average donation form abandonment rate is 50-70% in the nonprofit industry (npEngage.com). Donation abandonment campaigns seek to recapture these individuals by remarketing to them through personalized automated emails leveraging contact information gleaned from partially filled out forms. Keeping this in mind, campaign forms should be designed with the email address at the top of the form to ensure that this important information is retrieved prior to abandonment (which typically happens at the credit card fields). Automated emails are then deployed based on a predetermined time period depending upon each visitor’s behavior on your website; typically the first email within 30 min and a second and third a few days apart. The process is personalized to deploy emails at the right time to be the most relevant and effective for each prospect. Once an abandoner returns to the site and completes the donation, they will not receive any more emails. Watch our short video to see how it works.

What Were The Results?

The donation form abandonment campaign ran simultaneously throughout the month of April (Autism Awareness Month). During this time, Autism Speaks was able to reengage hundreds ofprospective donorsto generate 15% additional donations through the donation abandonment emails. An interesting phenomenal was that abandoners that came back to the site and donated did so at a higher amount than they originally had in the cart. Overall, 15% of the abandoners were recovered and donated 3X of the original abandoned donation value!

Donation Form Abandonment Conversion Funnel

Donation Abandoners: 24%

Donations Recovered through Campaign- 15%

Recoveries were at 45% of total abandoned value

Should More Nonprofits Use Automated Donation Abandonment Emails?

Innovative strategies like donation form abandonment can greatly improve the conversion rate of site visitors to donors and at a nominal cost. At first it may seem daunting to implement if you don’t have the bandwidth to manage the process, buttechnology providers like OpenMoves make it extremely easy and do all the heavy lifting so to make the campaign a success. For this campaign, OpenMoves supported Autism Speaks through the whole campaign set up process and providing Autism Speaks with LassoBacktracking code and creating and testing the automated emails–their concern for adding more personnel. Once the donation form abandonment software is set up, each message is automatically deployed and there is no additional work required. With the detailed analytics available on the LassoBack platform, the return on investment (ROI) for a donation form abandonment campaign is easy to measure. You can see exactly how many visitors abandoned the donations form and how many came back to your site through the LassoBack emails and the exact dollar amount of increased donations as a result of the campaign. Like Autism Speaks, most nonprofits are constantly searching for ways to increase online donations and generate more interest in their causes. Since donation form abandoners have already shown interest in your cause and have already visited your site, they are the most effective audience to target for conversion for your next successful campaign.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/donation-abandonment-how-nonprofit-autism-speaks-reengaged-24-of-prospective-donors/feed/04 Testing Tips to Maximize Resultshttp://openmoves.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-email-marketing-results-with-testing/
http://openmoves.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-email-marketing-results-with-testing/#respondFri, 26 Aug 2016 07:00:35 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=4443Whether you sell business-to-business (b2b) or business-to-consumer (b2c), the reason you are using email marketing is to stay top of mind and generate new prospects and sales, correct? If yes, then it’s time to raise the bar and get better results …

]]>Whether you sell business-to-business (b2b) or business-to-consumer (b2c), the reason you are using email marketing is to stay top of mind and generate new prospects and sales, correct?

If yes, then it’s time to raise the bar and get better results than you ever did last year. Here’s a 4-step “cheat sheet” with the action items you need to achieve your goals. And here’s one key takeaway: Always review the results of your email campaigns and then test in a disciplined, consistent manner. If you do that, your results will improve.

Always review the results of your email campaigns then test in a consistent manner.Click To Tweet

Step #1: Decide on your goals!

Don’t rush into this. Take a step back and ask your team what the goals are for your email marketing campaigns.

Here are a few examples of possible campaign goals:

Opens. You want more people to know who you are and to open your messages.

Is my content understandable? Or are my readers confused and, therefore, not responding?

Am I driving traffic to my web site but not converting that traffic into sales?

Am I sending out my emails on the day and time that’s most effective?

Step #3: Time to test!

The beauty of email marketing is that you can check the results within hours after sending and observe the results. It’s not like you’re sending ou
t a magazine or a print newsletter and have to wait days or weeks for reply cards to come back.

Testing requires setting up an A-B test, which is quick and easy to do! But the key point is that you need to change only one variable at a time so that you can correctly evaluate the effect of the change. If you change two or more variables, how will you know which variable caused the change?

Calls-to-action. Test different wordings and locations. Should it appear once or multiple times in the email?

Creative/layout. Does a mobile-friendly version have an impact on results?

Offer. Which offers convert the most best?

Step #4: Analyze the results + implement changes!

Many people ask what’s the best day to send, what’s the best time to send, what’s the best subject line, should I send on a workday or a weekend, and so on. The answer is that there is no inherent right or wrong approach. What you need to do is test and compare your own results. Read Email Marketing Metrics Roundup for more on comparing results.

Your goal isn’t to achieve a specific number; it’s to improve your numbers. You want to test against your own benchmark, not an industry benchmark. What works best for your demographics may not work for someone else’s demographics. Besides, it doesn’t matter how the other guys are doing. If you improve from your own results, you’re doing fine. Just keep going!

Test for personalization in the subject line. Should the recipient’s name be included or not?…Click To Tweet

Measure and analyze the results to gain insight and then change your tactics accordingly. Run a test 2-3 times before you jump to the conclusion that something does or doesn’t work. Make sure you document your tests in an organized manner as even small percentage changes can mean large gains in response rates.

When you implement the changes make them one at a time. Take your time and use your common sense. Look beyond the numbers to find meaning if the numbers don’t make sense.

And when all is said and done, don’t get overwhelmed with all this homework. Keep it simple. Pick a few tests that are relevant to your business. Not only will you learn more about your readers, but you are guaranteed to improve your results and your ROI.

If you use the OpenMoves OM3 Platform you have a variety of testing tools at your fingertips to make this process very efficient. If you need our help or want some how-to training just give us a holler.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-email-marketing-results-with-testing/feed/0Email Marketing: 7.5 Bad Habits to Stop in 2016http://openmoves.com/blog/email-marketing-7-5-bad-habits-to-stop-in-2016/
http://openmoves.com/blog/email-marketing-7-5-bad-habits-to-stop-in-2016/#respondThu, 26 May 2016 01:03:54 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=8138As the new marketing year gets rolling, we usually offer tips and advice on email industry trends. Instead, let’s focus on stopping some bad behavior that you may be guilty of. Here’s our top “Don’t Do” list for 2016: 1. …

]]>As the new marketing year gets rolling, we usually offer tips and advice on email industry trends. Instead, let’s focus on stopping some bad behavior that you may be guilty of. Here’s our top “Don’t Do” list for 2016:

1. Don’t Batch and Blast

With the inbox getting more and more cluttered, people are looking for email messaging that is relevant to them. Yes, we know it’s not simple to customize messages for different demographics or behaviors. But it has become SO much easier and it is very rewarding. It’s a no brainer that as a heterosexual male I should not receive emails about skirts and high heeled shoes from my favorite brand. And if I am already a client of yours, sure, email me about platform features and best practices but stop trying to sell me!

Today’s technology enables easy segmentation of recipients based on demographics and status (location, client vs prospect…), and behavior (opens, clicks, visits, purchase history etc…). Then you can deliver targeted messaging within the same campaign using dynamic content and automation. So for 2016, make one of your goals to move from a single newsletter to segmented and personalized campaigns. If you still batch and blast, stop it!

2. Don’t Use Your Old Newsletter Templates

Do you still receive many newsletters that look like they were designed in the ‘60s and are impossible to read on your smartphone? I know I do. Do you know that reading email remains the #1 activity on smartphones? Given the continuous increase in mobile readership it’s imperative that your readers will have a great experience reading your newsletter on their smartphones without the need to continuously pinch in all directions as this reflects poorly on your brand and email results. For 2016 PLEASE make a small effort and convert your old email templates to a mobile friendly responsive design and you’ll see your engagement and conversions increase!

3. Don’t Be Afraid of Automation

Yes, you’ll need to spend a bit of time thinking it through but automated emails will generate opens, site visits, leads, and sales while you sleep! Your time is better spent creating a few automated drip marketing campaigns such as welcome and registration series, and cart and browse abandonment, than scheduling your next email broadcast. So for 2016 raise the bar! Plan 1-2 new automation projects and either do it yourself or ask your email provider to create them for you.

4. Don’t Stop Building Your List

List churn is a natural evolutionary process and your list will shrink continuously as people move jobs and lose interest in your brand for whatever reason. So be diligent in using multiple channels to continuously grow your list. Consider pop-up signup form
s to gain new subscribers. But be sure to optimize timing and subscriber psychology in your call to action for the highest conversion rate. Make sure your web site and social media channels have an easy way to subscribe to your lists. Offer an incentive if appropriate and only ask for the minimum amount of information (email address) to keep the friction down. For 2016 your goal should be to increase your list size month over month. If you’ve left the growth of your list to fate, stop it!

5. Don’t Send Every Campaign at the Same Time of Day

Timing is everything in marketing and given our busy inbox you want to send emails when readers are ready to engage. Catching customers not only when they are active, but are also actively interested in buying is tough. Nowadays, several email platforms (including OpenMoves) offer a send time optimization feature that allow you to send an email campaign to your recipients based on the historical times they open their emails. This simple feature can help you nudge your open rates in 2016 so give it a shot, rather than a shot in the dark!

6. Don’t Jump to Remove Inactives

Some in the industry recommend you remove inactive recipients from your data base. I am not a proponent of this thinking as we know it’s not easy to grow your lists organically and your subscribers cannot engage with an email you don’t send them! So, assuming your subscribers have all opted in, definitely segment those that have not opened or clicked on an email in 6, 12, or 24 months and treat them differently but don’t remove them from your list. Consider sending these inactives different re-engagement campaigns with unique offers to try to bring them back to the fold.

7. Don’t Get Stuck on Campaign Percentages

Yes, open rates and click-through rates are important and easy to understand but don’t get stuck on these campaign-level statistics as you plan your email calendar for 2016. These KPIs can be misleading when looking at the individual campaign and not at the subscriber behavior over time. For example, is it better to send a monthly email with a 20% open rate (10,000 people) or a weekly email with a 10% open rate (20,000 people)? The bottom line that counts is what kind of final numerical results we get for our efforts. We want to see more people open our emails, click to our web site, and engage on our site by buying or downloading a white paper. So for 2016 if you are still focused on high-level campaign stats alone – stop it! Go ahead and send more frequent emails but weigh overall subscriber performance as the key indicator for success. As you increase your frequency keep an eye on your unsubscribe activity vs the increase in engagement and sales and decide on next steps accordingly.

7 ½. P.S. Don’t Use No-Reply as the Email Return Address

Email marketing is a form of communications and should not be one sided. A ‘no reply’ could give the subscriber the assumption that you couldn’t care about them and what they have to say. Which is the exact opposite of the effect you want your email to have, isn’t it?

If you are an OpenMoves client pleaselet us knowif you need any help making these 2016 improvement or sign upfor some training on how to use specific automation features.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/email-marketing-7-5-bad-habits-to-stop-in-2016/feed/0The Best April Fools’ Emailshttp://openmoves.com/blog/these-marketers-arent-fooling-around-the-best-april-fools-promos/
http://openmoves.com/blog/these-marketers-arent-fooling-around-the-best-april-fools-promos/#respondFri, 01 Apr 2016 20:07:50 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=8332Our fun loving mascot Moo had us in stitches when she shared these clever April Fools' day emails with us. Sure, the product offering may not be real, but what these companies did deliver on is much more valuable: brand awareness.

]]>Was your chair glued to the floor this morning or did someone try to serve you plastic fruit in the office kitchen? April Fools’ gags and pranks can range from downright mean to belly- laughing fun. If you didn’t market anything for this year’s April 1st prank then the joke’s on you, because you just missed a great opportunity to let your brand stand out from the herd. Our fun loving mascot Moo had us in stitches when she shared these clever emails with us. Sure, the product offering may not be real, but what these companies did deliver on is much more valuable: brand awareness.

How To Train Your Jackolope

PetSmart knows the world’s not just made up of cat and dog lovers. If the kids have been asking for a new fiesty and furry pet, PetSmart’s got you covered.

You Had Us At “Puppy”

Francesca’s knows how to help a girl accessorize: How about a puppy for that little black dress? You won’t want to miss that package at your door.

An End To Sock Abandonment

ThredUp was fed up with mismatched donated socks. Their solution? Send the singles instead. Wonder if that applies to missing Tupperware lids too?

One Size Does Not Fit All

Assuming you’re not intimidated by small spaces, then redbox has a place for you. This imagery will never leave you the next time you spot a redbox kiosk.

From Smell-O’Vision to Taste-A-Phone

Table for two? No problem, but have you tasted the brushetta? This app not only impresses your date but you can sample the menu. Keep it coming OpenTable, you just whetted our appetite for more.

Now it’s your turn. Did you come across a clever marketing email for April Fools’? We’d love to know about it. Drop us a line info@openmoves.com.

Reminder for next year: You’d be a fool not to miss out on a marketer’s dream that only comes once a year.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/these-marketers-arent-fooling-around-the-best-april-fools-promos/feed/0Tips To Maximize Recoveries During The Holidayshttp://openmoves.com/blog/increase-ecommerce-sales-by-5-percent/
http://openmoves.com/blog/increase-ecommerce-sales-by-5-percent/#respondFri, 30 Oct 2015 12:43:42 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=7240Did you know that Abandonment rates average 65% and as high as >80% during holiday season? Here are 7 key points to maximize your conversions. When implemented correctly, this technology can recover 10%-20% of your abandoners

]]>So you have a successful online store, growing good traffic to the site and sales are good. Are you set? Not necessarily as you may be losing lots of sales through Shopping Cart Abandonment. Did you know that Abandonment rates average 65% and as high as >80% during holiday season? Here are 7 key points to maximize your conversions. When implemented correctly, this technology can recover 10%-20% of your abandoners – that means you can increase online sales by >5% while you are sleeping. No brainer, right?

Do you know your cart abandonment rate? The easiest way to determine your cart abandonment rate is by logging on to your web analytics and checking the ratio of how many people place items in the cart (enter the checkout process) to how many actually buy (reach the Thank You page).

Using a series of carefully timed emails, called “cart abandonment emails,” you can recover up to 20% of the money you might otherwise have lost. Here how to do it in a seven easy steps:

1. How many recovery emails should I send?

Best practice is to start with 3 emails. If you are willing to offer some kind of a promotion (free shipping, additional discount or a free accessory) to the abandoner then send the first 2 emails as customer service reminders and offer the promotion only with the third email. Once you have the campaign running for a while and you can optimize it further and can test adding a 4th and 5th emails and see if they have incremental recoveries. They typically do.

2. When should I send my recovery emails?

Timing is everything. To maximize your conversions the first email you send should be within 60 minutes of the abandonment while your brand is still “top of mind.” Tests have shown that waiting 24 hours to send your first email may negatively impact your conversion by more than 50%. The timing for 2nd and 3rd emails depend somewhat on the value of the product (is it a $25 T-shirt or a $3,000 handbag?) or if there is a deadline (e.g.: registration) and your other marketing touch points with the prospect. We typically recommend sending the 2nd email 2-3 days after the abandonment and the 3rd email 5-7 days after the abandonment. If the lead time to a purchase decision of your product is longer consider extending the delay for the 2nd and 3rd emails.

3. What kind of designs work best for recovery emails?

Keep it Simple. The key to maximizing conversions from these emails is to stay focused on the goal: bringing the abandoner back to the shopping cart to convert. We don’t want to have too many messages and options to distract the abandoner.

Effective Branding and Header: Branding needs to be very clear but don’t overwhelm them with a huge banner that takes away from our goal. You may want to include in the header design the best way to reach you and maybe an image of a friendly customer service person.

A Reminder of What They’ve Abandoned:: Show the product or products that were abandoned, but as a “tease.” Don’t provide all the product details; maybe just show the image, name and a basic description so that the abandoner is enticed to click to your site to see the rest.

Call to Action: Include a clear, bold, call-to-action button to “complete your purchase” or “return to cart.” Include the CTA both at the top and bottom of the email.

Consumer-Friendly Voice: Don’t try to be an aggressive salesperson with your first message. Instead of saying “Hey, what happened to you?” a better approach is, “Oops, we noticed you left an item in your cart.” Sound like you’re doing them a favor by reminding them that they didn’t complete their purchase. The second and third emails can slowly turn on the charm.

Urgency: Create some urgency especially as of the 2nd and 3rd emails and remind them that you cannot hold the item forever in their shopping cart and that they will soon lose the opportunity to complete the purchase.

Example 1: Love this example with clever copy and fun design

Example 2:

4. Great Copy from Subject Line to Email Content

Cart abandonment recovery emails will have a significantly better open rate than your regular emails but you still need to craft good subject lines and copy as we see in the example above Here are some subject lines that have had excellent results for some brands, but please run an A/B tests for the best results for your brand:

We saved your cart, but only for a limited time! Complete your order today & get 10% OFF!

Last chance! Come back for 10% off before your cart expires!

5. How do I know who abandoned my site?

Some ecommerce sites have some rudimentary cart abandonment functionality built in. So why should you use a standalone platform such as LassoBackor others? A typical ecommerce platform (e.g. Magneto) only captures abandoners who registered to the site while LassoBack captures any abandoner for whom we recognize their email address — they were sent email blasts and were “cookied” or abandoned after entering their email address in the checkout but did not register. The upshot is that LassoBack will capture 25%-50% more abandoners so your recoveries will be much higher.

6. What kind of results should I expect?

Obviously, results will vary depending on your site. In general, UniqueOpen rates of > 40%-60% are common with click-to-open (CTO) rates higher than 35%. Typical recoveries range 10%-20% with the best results in the 1st email and the one that has a promotion. See below a typical 3-part campaign where the 1st email is sent within 30 minutes of abandonment, the second after 3 days and the third after 5 days with a promotion.

7. How do I define a recovery?

As you probably know, revenue attribution is a complicated matter in ecommerce. Before choosing your cart abandonment vendor make sure you understand how they measure revenue attribution. When do they take the “credit” for a transaction from a recovery email? This is a very important distinction as you want to be able to accurately measure the ROI from cart abandonment emails vs your other marketing channels. In the OpenMoves LassoBack platform (see below) we define recoveries as Direct or Assisted (similar to how Google defines remarketing attribution). We allow the user to define what a direct recovery is – for ex: anyone that clicked from a recovery email and purchased within 24 hours). You can also determine how long after the last “touch” from a recovery email you want a purchase to count as an Assisted Recovery – For ex: anyone that purchased 7 days after receiving a recovery email can be counted as an Assist.Typical recovery dashboard (LassoBack platform)

Bottom line: If you have an ecommercesite, using cart abandonment emails is a no-brainer. Most standalone cart abandonment platforms will provide you with infinitely more data than Google Analytics or an ecommerce platform such as Magento or Shopify. Costs are relatively low at <$500/month so ROI can be 10X and most of the work is done by the platform vendor.

Contact us to evaluate the return you may see from using this amazing technology.

]]>What are the key email marketing metrics and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) you should look at to measure your email marketing success? Unfortunately, there isn’t a single answer as it depends on your objectives. Nonetheless, we interviewed our staff and clients and compiled a list of the top metrics and KPIs. Here’s what you should track and leverage to optimize your email marketing performance.

Opens

Open rates are a good successindicator but may not correlate to engagement or conversions. A drop in open rates over time may suggest list fatigue, time for cleaning, or a re-engagement campaign. Check also for potential delivery issues. Open rates can also indicate how engaging your content is and whether you need to split test subjects or pre-headers. Also, consider changing the timing or perhaps overhaul your editorial calendar completely.

Clicks

A good metric for measuring the relevance of your email content. It’s a good idea to look at link activity over time. Name your links with a “friendly name” and categorize them into relevant content buckets (i.e. blog categories, product type, CTAs). That way you can evaluate results over time for a particular category. Heat Maps are one of the best ways to improve email performance and to see which CTAs are working best. Sure, the Hero image will work best but you’ll be surprised what other links work well including those in your footer and social icons.

Click to Open Rate (CTOR)

–CTOR is a quick and reliable metric to measure campaign performance with a strong correlation to conversion rates. The percentage of unique opens who clicked on a link is an excellent indicator for the effectiveness of your content. When comparing campaigns, CTOR is a great KPI for campaign effectiveness.

Objective Metrics

Different emails have different objectives. Always use the metric which maps back to the goal. The goal for our top-of-mind newsletter is to drive more visitors to our blog. So we’ll look at clicks to blog posts and page views it generates.

When someone signs up for our 30 Day Free Trial they receive 7 automated emails focused on increased engagement and conversion. So in this case we check the number of signups to the trial account as a result of the emails as well as phone calls and conversions.

If we send invitations to a webinar or seminar our key goal is registrations. So we will look at Click-to-Open rate for engagement to the registration page and an ROI tracker on the Thank You page to measure Registrations within the OpenMoves platform.

Engagement over time

Is an open or click from a “fan” more valuable than a click from a new or infrequent recipient? The answer may vary, but you’ll typically see higher ROI from the latter. So measuring engagement over time using segmentation can be insightful and you’ll learn which emails are better at creating new engagement.

Another good measurement for ongoing engagement is Open Reach Rate or Click Reach Rate. These tell you what percentage of your subscribers are opening or clicking over a given period (i.e. quarter). If you send emails pretty consistently Open Reach is a great KPI to compare quarter over quarter performance.

Conversion Rate

If the key metric for your email campaigns is new leads or a sales then you should measure everything in terms of what leads to the highest conversion. Whether subject line performance, CTAs, email content, or design, you should look at all the elements of an email that bring the highest conversion rate. As an example, is a good subject line one that generates the most openers or the most conversions?

Revenue per email

If revenue is the goal, than what matters most is how much revenue you generated per email. To be objective, best to compare campaigns by revenue per 1K email sent so you have a ratio that’s meaningful. You can also look at average order size per campaigns.

The OpenMoves platform integrates revenue and conversion data from Google Analytics. But if your ESP does not offer this data you can easily setup Goal Value in your Google Analytics.

Engagement per device

Studies have shown that many mobile readers delete emails that don’t display correctly on their smartphones. So looking at opens and clicks split by device can shed light on the value of responsive templates for your brand. Note: watch out for those subscribers that switch from mobile to web to complete their conversion.

Target Total vs Target %

Don’t get hung up on % rates only (open rates, click rate, conversion rate, etc…). And compare target totals – the total actual number of people that opened or clicked or converted. By sending 3 emails/week vs. 1 email/week you may reduce your open rate and click rate and conversion but you might have more openers, clickers, and actual sales. So sometimes the % may be deceiving as your goal is typically to maximize results and not the percentages.

List fatigue

Charting trends like subscribers’ time on a list and correlating to source (Social Media, Tradeshows, Web, etc.) can lead to interesting insights into your list fatigue and ways to improve list growth.

Unsubs

A simple and good KPI to measure the lack of relevance of your content to your subscribers. Measure unsubscribes as a % of your list over certain time increments. You can also look at unsubscribes based on email frequency and based on when they opted in (is there higher churn with new subscribers vs old?).

Bounces/Complaints

Like unsubscribes, very important to keep an eye on % of ISP complaints, hard and soft bounces as indicators of list hygiene and deliverability issues.

So the most useful metric in email marketing depends on what you are trying to achieve with your email program and what you are able to measure.

]]>Any email marketer knows that an ongoing email acquisition strategy is vital to keep your list healthy and growing. Unfortunately, we experience ongoing list attrition as lists become stale due to poor engagement and subscribers’ email addresses changes. View your list as a dynamic entity that can ebb and flow and commit to growing your list with creative ideas.

List Health– The first step in checking the health of your list is looking at your ESP’s analytics over time. Is your list growing or shrinking? When and where do you get the most opt-ins (on site, on social media, in stores, at events, etc…)? How many are opting out and why? Is list attrition a result of bounces (hard and soft) or people unsubscribing from your emails?

Channels: What are the most effective channels to grow your list? Every business is different but there some rules of thumb that apply to all:

Web site registration- do you have an easy opt-in on EVERY page of your web site?

In addition to these basics you can utilize a variety of list acquisition tactics using online advertising and third party lists rentals. Here’s a list of acquisition tactics used by email marketers (2014 Trendline Interactive Inc Survey)

Opt-in Incentives In many cases opt-ins incentives work really well and are very worthwhile for your ongoing list growth and conversions.

Here are some traditional incentives that work:

5% discounts on first purchase, free shipping,

Free downloadable compelling content to sign up

1000 rewards program points for joining

Join to win an iPad – watch out, an incentive that does not relate to your brand may be short lived.

Softer creative techniques:

Charity- offer a charitable or philanthropic contribution to a choice of 3-5 charities when the person opts-in. This incentive works really well and a nice win-win for all.

Tree- Plant a tree in their name for saving on paper

I believe incentives are generally a good thing for list acquisition but watch out as incentives and discounts can devalue you product offerings and could train consumers to expect them.

And remember, to keep them on your list, continue to have great content as an incentive to engage and refer you to others. Send people useful and beautiful emails. It works.

]]>Ok, its 2015 and you are not sure how to increase your email marketing performance again this year. It’s clearly getting tougher given the competition and ongoing deliverability challenges but email marketing continues to have the highest ROI so it’s all worth it. Whether you’re new to email marketing or a savvy sender, here’s some good 2015 tips on getting more out of your email campaigns.

1. Are you growing your list?

It’s a given that you’ll always have some people unsubscribe from your emails and that some of your email addresses will become stale. That’s why it’s imperative that you focus on growing your list faster than it erodes. Make sure it’s easy and enticing to subscribe to your email list from every page on your site, blog and Facebook account; use a simple call-to-action on every page and consider offering a promotion if appropriate. Try using a subscription time-delayed pop-up on your website that’s smart enough to know if a customer is already subscribed.

2. Are you maximizing your deliverability?

As people move on with their jobs and interests they may not be reading your emails any more. Make sure you continuously review your hard and soft bounces as well as your complaints to ensure your deliverability is not impacted. Segment your inactive recipients (ones that did not open or click in i.e. past 12 months) and treat them differently but don’t take them off the list. Avoid spam traps by running a list hygiene at least once a year and only use opt-in email addresses. If you are sending to recipients in Canada make sure you are following the CASL guidelines.

3. Are you sending enough emails?

Businesses are often concerned about sending too many emails, but how many is too many? You should send more relevant emails as long as your unsubscribe or complaint rate doesn’t increase above the baseline you had before you increased the frequency. If you send a monthly newsletter with four articles, try a biweekly with two articles, and then move to weekly. Don’t be concerned that the open rates and click-through percentages are lower; what counts is how many actual people opened, clicked and engaged. If the number is higher and the unsubscribe rate is the same, stay the course. A simple way to improve your performance is to ReMailto non-openers a few days later with a different subject line.

4. Have you refreshed your design?

Does your current design reflect your branding and your new website? Are there clear CTAs? Are there numerous links to your site in every email and on your blog? Today’s more effective designs are simple and crisp; less is more, as long as it’s relevant and engaging. Check your analytics: If many of your readers are reading your emails on a smartphone, consider a mobile-friendly design.

5. Have you gone “mobile first?”

By the end of 2013, nearly 50% of emails were read on a smartphone. This is a huge paradigm shift that you must adapt to. You need to evolve your designs to favor the mobile reader. You can either do this with a “mobile first” design that has one template focused on the mobile reader, or with a responsive design that will change the layout of the template based on the size of the reader’s screen.

6. Are you automating your emails?

Automated trigger emails are the most effective strategies to improve ROI. The automation requires a bit of “what-if-then” thinking upfront, but it’s extremely effective and worth the effort. An easy one to start with is a “welcome” email series that introduces your brand to recipients who sign up for emails from your site or social media channels. Once you have a welcome series you can create automated triggered emails based on email behavior (opened, did not opened, clicked….) or web site activity (spent x time on product y page).

7. What are you doing about your abandoners?

In 2014, there was a significant increase in the number of e-commerce sites integrating cart-abandonment emails. These one-to-one emails have proven extremely effective, with typical conversions of 15% to 30%. In 2015, the trend should continue and be augmented with more browser-abandonment emails – automated emails sent to people who browsed a section of your website, with dynamic content related to what they browsed for. If you don’t have an ecommerce site but have lead form abandonment, you can utilize the same technology to convert more leads. Be careful about how aggressively you send these emails – testing is recommended!

8. Do you know your readers?

Today’s readers favor a personalized experience based on relevant content. If your readers are receiving emails from two competing companies, they’ll engage the one that’s most relevant and actionable for them. Think of data elements you can use to personalize their experience – names, demographics, interests, purchase histories, etc. Also consider using a third-party appending resource to learn more about them.

9. Can you send more relevant and personalized content?

Don’t “batch and blast” and treat all your email recipients the same. Segment your recipients based on purchase history (can be automated with most ecommerce sites) and send them relevant offers with product recommendations and promotions that relate to their past purchases. Build a “personal connection” and provide content that’s engaging and informative and carries the same voice across your social media and blogs. Newsletters should be full of case studies, best practices, industry updates and so on. If the CTAs lead to a landing page, make sure the page is “sticky” and concise with an easy-to-fill-out form.

10. Are you social?

If you have a social presence, make sure you have clear “follow us” icons in a consistent place in your email. Consider only highlighting the most important social media icons that are relevant to your business (such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest for B2C and for B2B). Separate the “share” icons from the “follow us” icons.
These tips should start you on the right path for a successful 2015 email marketing strategy.

Good luck and give us a holler if you need a hand or try out the OM3 email marketing platform for FREE.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/2015-email-marketing-checklist/feed/0What You Need to Know about the Canadian CASL Legislationhttp://openmoves.com/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-canadian-anti-spam-legislation-casl/
http://openmoves.com/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-canadian-anti-spam-legislation-casl/#respondTue, 24 Jun 2014 16:20:35 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=6745If you are sending email marketing messages to Canadian subscribers or if you are a Canadian company you need to be aware of the new CASL (Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation) law that goes into effect on July 1, 2014. CASL not …

]]>If you are sending email marketing messages to Canadian subscribers or if you are a Canadian company you need to be aware of the new CASL (Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation) law that goes into effect on July 1, 2014.
CASL not only affects how Canadian businesses send emails, but applies also to any business that sends marketing emails to Canadian recipients. So if you think you may have Canadian recipients in your database, pay attention!

Are You Affected by CASL?

The first thing you need to determine, before you dive into this law, is if it relates to your organization. If the answer to ANY of the below is ‘Yes’, then CASL is applicable to your organization:

Is your organization based in Canada or do you have an office in Canada?

Is your ESP (Email Provider) based in Canada?

Does your email marketing database include recipients who receive emails in Canada or who have a Canadian billing address or mailing address (or have an email address ending with .ca)?

Do you send marketing emails to anyone in Canada, regardless of whether your company is based outside of the country?

On the other hand, this law DOES NOT relate to you if you meet these three criteria:

Your organization has no physical presence in Canada

Your ESP or email provider is not based in Canada

You have no Canadian subscribers that you send email marketing messages to

What is CASL?

By now, you should have determined if this applies to you and if you should read on or do something more. Essentially, CASL is intended to do what it says – CASL is the Canadian Government’s new law designed to not only combat unsolicited email, but also strives to prevent malware proliferation, hacking and identity theft.

In its own words it is “an Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian Economy.”

First, it’s important to note the Canadian Government’s definition of a marketing email:

“[A Commercial Electronic Message] is an electronic message sent by any means of telecommunication that encourages participation in a commercial activity, regardless of whether there is an expectation of profit.”

The second main point is the definition of consent. CASL classifies consent into two categories: Express consent and implied consent.

Express Consent:

✔ A recipient has explicitly asked to receive your emails, either through a compliant opt-in form, a sign-up link in a service email (e.g. purchase receipt) or has clearly opted in at some point during the purchase phase.

✔ This consent does not expire unless revoked by the recipient!

Implied Consent:

✔ A recipient has an existing relationship with your organization. The relationship can be business related or non-business related but one where the recipient has not explicitly asked to receive emails from your organization– for example, after a purchase or a donation to a non-profit organization.

✔ This consent expires after 24 months, at which time your marketing emails are considered unsolicited and liable.

✔ During the 24 months period you can (and should) seek express consent from the implied consent recipients.

Many organizations currently operate on ‘implied consent’ with regards to who they believe has opted into their marketing lists. Therefore, it is important to dive into the details and fully understand the meaning of express and implied consent.

What is an Express consent CASL compliant opt-in form?

Subscriber must take an affirmative action to sign up:

Entering an email address and clicking “Submit”

Checking a box requesting emails and clicking “submit or “Continue”

IMPORTANT: a pre-checked box is NOT an affirmative action

The form clearly states that the subscriber will receive commercial marketing email messages from your organization

A statement clearly saying that that the recipient can unsubscribe at any time

Clearly state the name of the organization, including physical address (P.O. Box is OK), Web address (if you have one), and a functional email address

Single opt-in is mandatory but double opt-in is highly recommended as it ensures that the person filling the form is the true subscriber. Once someone subscribes, it is a recommended practice to send a confirmation or welcome email to the subscriber.

Our recommendation is to modify your current opt-in form to reflect the above CASL requirements whether CASL impacts you or not!

Message content according to CASL is the similar to CAN-SPAM where your emails need to include the following:

Clear identification of the sender (your organization)

A working method to contact the sender (“no-reply” from addresses do not comply with CASL)

Unsubscribe functionality that’s working for 60 days from send and that you process within 10 days

How is CASL Enforced?

CASL is going to be enforced by three different agencies – the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC); the Competition Bureau; and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Penalties for infringing the law can range from up to $1 million for individuals, and $10 million for companies. The CRTC does have the ability and authority to operate trans-border and bring proceedings against offshore organizations – in short, they may come after you.

It is important to keep records of express and implied consent for recipients. According to CASL, in the event a subscriber complains, the sender (you) is required to provide proof of consent.

Implementation Period

Although CASL takes effect on July 1, 2014 the Canadian Government has given all organizations a three year transition period, until July 1 2017, to collect and demonstrate express consent from their and new current marketing lists.

This means that you have three years to get express consent from implied consent recipients.

Note: Any express consent received prior to July 1, 2014 will be considered compliant with CASL, even if the newly-required elements were not included.

OpenMoves Disclaimer:Please be advised that this blog post is based on our interpretation of the Canadian Anti-Spam Law and its applications. This post is for informational purposes only and is designed to help you, as marketers, better understand the law and how it might affect you. We are not lawyers and nothing presented here is, or should be construed as, legal advice. Please consult your legal or compliance department for specific guidance in regards to adherence with the law.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-canadian-anti-spam-legislation-casl/feed/0Pop-Ups: Annoying, But Effective!http://openmoves.com/blog/pop-ups-annoying-but-effective/
http://openmoves.com/blog/pop-ups-annoying-but-effective/#respondWed, 28 May 2014 03:43:20 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=6674When used correctly, pop-ups can maximize your Web site’s effectiveness in generating new prospects and readers.. But before you rush out and slap a pop-up on your site, you need to be aware of the right way to use them.

]]>Don’t you just hate it when you’re on a Web site and suddenly there’s a “pop-up” in your face asking for your email address or for some other information?

Despite how annoying they can be, what you need to know is how incredibly effective they can be when done correctly.In fact, if you’re trying to grow your lists and capture the email addresses of visitors to your Web site or blog, pop-ups canboost conversions by >50% to a newsletter signup, whitepaper download, free audit, or other calls-to-action (CTAs)!

Before you rush out and slap a pop-up on your site, you need to be aware of the right way to use them:

Pop-up based on timing or behavior – Pop-ups shouldn’t be too intrusive, ruining your visitor’s experience. Most solutions enable you to customize when the pop-up, well, pops up. One simple solution is based on time – it appears after a visitor has spent, say, 10 seconds on a page. Or it can be based on behavior with the pop-up showing up after the visitor has read several pages – or at the end of an article. In some cases, you may want to have it appear only after an indication of engagement, such as after a visitor clicked somewhere on the page. Or, conversely, when the visitor is about to exit the page. If you really want to be sophisticated, you can even vary the pop-up content based on the origin page. In other words, one content block if the reader came from a Google Ad and another content block if they came from your blog.

Make sure the pop-up’s content is relevant to the page the visitor is on. Typical pages that might use pop-ups are those for newsletter signups, downloading a white paper, signing up for 10% off your next order, and for “liking” or “sharing” the blog post on your social media. Use different pop-ups for different sections of your site. And remember not all pages need a pop-up.The pop-up’s header should be succinct and shouldn’t take more than 1-2 seconds to read before the reader needs to decide whether to “X out” or fill out the form. Remember that your goal is to collect email addresses so don’t ask for more than that (you can always get the rest of the information you require later on).

Pick the right pop-up solution. There are many pop-up solutions available for a nominal fee and somecan be tailored to your specific Web site platform (such as WordPress or e-commerce sites like Magento). Typically the process calls for creating the pop-up and then pasting some tracking code on the pages where you want the pop-up to appear. Depending on the software’s sophistication, you may have more levers and filters for timing, content, A-B tests, reporting, and so on. If you are an OpenMoves OM3 user our Surveys and Registration Forms functionality provide you with a basic pop-up functionality to grow your lists.

Know how to check your pop-up’s effectiveness. You’ll need to have baseline information on conversion rates for the relevant CTA before you launch the pop-up. For example, if you’re trying to grow your email list, monitor your current subscription results and then compare the results after you’ve implemented the pop-up. You’ll typically see a significant increase. Then go ahead and run a variation of the pop-up – for example, changing its timing or behavior – to optimize results.

Don’t be Annoying – Once a visitor has completed the pop-up form, be sure the software cookies them and doesn’t present them with another pop-up requesting the same information the next time they visit your site. Also, you don’t want to pester more than three times those visitors who have not yet signed up.

Watch out for pitfalls:

Are you getting complaints? You don’t want to annoy your loyal visitors. Watch out for and keep track of any email or phone complaints.

Check Web site functionality. Make certain the pop-ups render correctly on all browsers and that visitors can easily exit out (by clicking on a big X in the form’s corner if they choose).

Are you reaching out to the right subscribers? Be sure the pop-ups appear for the correct visitors and monitor your unsubscribes as a result of the pop-up versus regular signups.

Check your abandonment rate. Use your Google Analytics (or other monitoring software) to determine whether the abandonment rate on those pages with pop-ups has increased significantly as a result of the pop-up.

After reviewing results, decide whether pop-ups are right for your site. If you’re not sure, test variations and perhaps place them sparingly, only on key pages rather than blanketing your site. Remember, done incorrectly, pop-ups can annoy. Done correctly, pop-ups can be a great tool you can use to maximize your Web site’s effectiveness in generating new prospects and readers. If you need help implementing a pop-up solution for your site gives us a holler.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/pop-ups-annoying-but-effective/feed/0Tips For Correct Usage Of Imageshttp://openmoves.com/blog/its-not-cool-to-be-a-copycat/
Mon, 24 Mar 2014 15:50:52 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=6565Tips For Correct Usage Of Images. In the good old days, before our production editor got on our case, we would have picked one of those images, copied it, and, voila! Our best advice is DON’T DO IT! Current Fair Use image copyright laws say you are financially liable for posting copyright images.

It’s widely known that when you add an image to your blog post, e-newsletter, or social media post you will have higher readership and engagement. As if finding the topic and words to fill an entire e-newsletter or blog isn’t difficult enough, you’re surely going to want to illustrate your text too. As you well know, the Internet is a visual medium, and lots and lots of text without images to lighten and brighten it all up is bound to lose you readers.

So where are you going to find those images, eh? No problem, you say … you’ll just Google your subject matter, click on the “images” tab, and up will pop more appropriate photos, cartoons, and icons than you’ll need in a lifetime of e-newsletters and blogs.

Heck, we needed an image to go along with the blog about being a copycat that you’re reading right now and look what we found:

In the good old days, before our production editor got on our case, we would have picked one of those images, copied it, and, voila! Instant illustration! We’re guessing you’re thinking that would be a brilliant idea … but, as our production editor would say:

YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT!!!

We know … you’re saying WHAT??? They’re all on the Internet! And Google showed them on its search results page, which means Google says it’s OK for us to use them.

No, Google did NOT say that! In fact, you might want to check out this article about a PR firm that got smacked with a formal complaint letter about image copyright infringement. Fortunately for them, their attorney was able to negotiate a settlement of just $3,000 instead of the original $8,000 in penalties they might have had to pay. But we’re guessing you think even $3,000 is too much to pay. And we’d agree with you there!

So how does one avoid getting into such a predicament?

Start by promising yourself (and your production editor) that you will never, ever duplicate an image unless you are positive it’s free for the taking.

But, wait, you say … what about the clever little image to the right that shows a copycat doing just what we’re telling you NOT to do. Did we pay for that?

No … and that’s because we snagged it from the bounty of illustrations that Microsoft Word 2013 generously provides for the taking … which you can find here: http://ow.ly/uUbp4

Similarly there are Web sites you can access, like MorgueFile, where high-res digital stock photography and other art is available for free for either corporate or public use.

And you can even go to sites like Getty Images or iStock where typically you’ll need to purchase images, but you’ll also discover some that are free.

Just be sure to read the fine print where you find the images, especially the licensing requirements. Some require you to link to their site, others want you to credit the site or the artist/photographer. Some don’t care what you do.

If all of this is too much effort for you, if you believe your e-newsletter or blog is too small for anyone to notice that you swiped someone else’s work, if you think you won’t get caught, think again. People who create copyrighted images hire services that use computer programs to scour the Internet for copies of those works. It may take time to find them, but the process is automated and runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Eventually they’ll catch up with you.

Our best advice is DON’T DO IT! Current Fair Use image copyright laws say you are financially liable for posting copyright images. Even if you link back to the photo source and cite the photographer or artist’s name, even if you make no money from your e-newsletter or blog, even if you do it by accident.

]]>When Do People Open Their Emails?http://openmoves.com/blog/when-do-people-open-their-emails/
Wed, 05 Feb 2014 21:27:56 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=6161If your business sends emails on a regular basis, then you must have asked yourself: What is the shelf life my emails and when are people actually opening them? Let's examine data from 10 billion emails over 12 months to learn the truth behind email open rates and the best send times.

]]>Instead of talking about exotic advanced features, I thought it’s time to get down to some of the basic questions we typically get from our email clients. Today, let’s review questions about the shelf life of an email, and also, when is it best to send your email?

The above graph is a compilation of data from ~10 Billion emails sent in a 12 month period in batches of >5K. It represents unique open rates from the time of send.

What Important Lessons Can We Learn From These Open Rates?

27% of all opens take place within 2 hours of sends. This means that if an email is sent too early or too late in reference to top engagement times you may not have optimal results.

45% of all opens occur within 6 hours of send. This is an important indicator to consider in timing the sending of your email. Many clients send their email from 2-4 AM to make sure their emails are in the inbox by the start of the business day.

83% of opens take place within the first 48 hours. This also means that 17% open after two days. Keep in mind that this graph represents the 1st open by the reader. The 2nd and 3rd open as well as the actual engagement (click to web site) may take place days later.

The type of product or service you sell, and whether the email is promotional or educational will have a lot to do with the overall shelf life of the email. A B2B educational email that provides valuable information may see re-engagement weeks after it was sent.

As expected, a promotional email will typically have a shorter life that can be measured in days. In some instances though, if the product is not a consumable and is costly, you may see opens, clicks, and purchases weeks after the initial send.

When do People Open Their Emails?

The best open rates typically take place during the early working hours when people come in to work or start their day and scan their inbox (8- 10AM) or later in the day (2-5PM). Lunch times and early evening have lower open rates. As you would expect, weekdays have better engagement than weekends and the busiest email marketing days are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

When to Send an Email?

To time it right the best tactic is to send emails while people are most likely to engage. If you have a national or global data base you need to stagger the emails sends in time-zone waves rather than treat everyone the same. If you don’t want to go through this effort the safest method is to send early AM so that email does not sit in the inbox for too long before being seen. At the same time, those are the busiest hours for emails so some take the contrarian approach and send their emails in the afternoon to avoid the morning clutter.

Forget the Above and Test for Yourself!

All these statistics and tips make for a great general understanding but DON’T take them as gospel. Your lists may behave differently. You must test different send times and different days and review your results and learn from them. Review your data over time and conduct numerous A/B tests before you conclude the best methods for your list. Please read this article on How to Test For Best Results.

]]>Plan for Success – 2014 Email Checklisthttp://openmoves.com/blog/plan-for-success-2014-email-checklist/
Sat, 25 Jan 2014 17:55:28 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=6335You don’t have to be a large company with a great brand to deliver an automated, personalized, one-to-one customer experience. Here’s a quick overview of the most important email trends for the New Year – and some tips on getting more out of your email campaigns.

]]>Whether you’re new to email marketing or a savvy sender, this is a good time to think through your 2014 strategy. Here’s a quick overview of the most important email trends for the New Year – and some tips on getting more out of your email campaigns.

Are you growing your list?

It’s a given that you’ll always have some people unsubscribe from your emails and that some of your email addresses will become stale. That’s why it’s imperative that you focus on growing your list faster than it erodes. Make sure it’s easy and enticing to subscribe to your email list from every page on your site, blog and Facebook account; use a simple call-to-action on every page and consider offering a promotion if appropriate. Try using a subscription time-delayed pop-up on your website that’s smart enough to know if a customer is already subscribed.

Are you sending enough emails?

Businesses are often concerned about sending too many emails, but how many is too many? You should send more relevant emails as long as your unsubscribe or complaint rate doesn’t increase above the baseline you had before you increased the frequency. If you send a monthly newsletter with four articles, try a biweekly with two articles, and then move to weekly. Don’t be concerned that the open rates and click-through percentages are lower; what counts is how many actual people opened, clicked and engaged. If the number is higher and the unsubscribe rate is the same, stay the course. A simple way to improve your performance is to ReMailto non-openers a few days later with a different subject line.

Have you refreshed your design?

Does your current design reflect your branding and your new website? Are there clear CTAs? Are there numerous links to your site in every email and on your blog? Today’s more effective designs are simple and crisp; less is more, as long as it’s relevant and engaging. Check your analytics: If many of your readers are reading your emails on a smartphone, consider a mobile-friendly design.

Have you gone “mobile first?”

By the end of 2013, nearly 50% of emails were read on a smartphone. This is a huge paradigm shift that you must adapt to. You need to evolve your designs to favor the mobile reader. You can either do this with a “mobile first” design that has one template focused on the mobile reader, or with a responsive design that will change the layout of the template based on the size of the reader’s screen.

Are you automating?

Automated trigger emails are being used more by B2C and B2B to improve ROI. The automation requires a bit of “what-if-then” thinking upfront, but it’s extremely effective and worth the effort. An easy one is a three-part “welcome” email series that introduces your brand to recipients who sign up for emails from your site or social media channels. Try automating a re-engagement sequence to help get the next sale.

What are you doing about cart abandonment?

In 2013, there was a huge increase in the number of e-commerce sites integrating cart-abandonment emails. These one-to-one emails have proven extremely effective, with typical conversions of 15% to 30%. In 2014, the trend should continue and be augmented with more browser-abandonment emails – automated emails sent to people who browsed a section of your website, with dynamic content related to what they browsed for. If you don’t have an ecommerce site but have lead form abandonment, you can utilize the same technology to convert more leads. Be careful about how aggressively you send these emails – testing is recommended!

Do you know your readers?

Today’s readers favor a personalized experience based on relevant content. If your readers are receiving emails from two competing companies, they’ll engage the one that’s most relevant and actionable for them. Think of data elements you can use to personalize their experience – names, demographics, interests, purchase histories, etc. Also consider using a third-party appending resource to learn more about them.

Are you providing relevant and personalized content?

Don’t “batch and blast” and treat all your email recipients the same. Build a “personal connection” and provide content that’s engaging and informative and carries the same voice across your social media and blogs. Newsletters should be full of case studies, best practices, industry updates and so on. Whether it’s a B2B newsletter or a sales blast, if the CTAs lead to a landing page, make sure the page is “sticky” and concise with an easy-to-fill-out form. If you have a blog or a content-rich website, link your email articles with a “read more” button to drive more traffic to your site.

Are you social?

If you have a social presence, make sure you have clear “follow us” icons in a consistent place in your email. Consider only highlighting the most important social media icons that are relevant to your business (such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest for B2C and for B2B). Separate the “share” icons from the “follow us” icons.
The good news is you don’t have to be a large company with a great brand to deliver an automated, personalized, one-to-one customer experience. Such functionality is now affordable even for the small-business owner.
These tips should start you on the right path for a successful 2014 email marketing strategy.

]]>Do you know how many of your web site visitors abandon your registration forms and never come back? Industry abandonment rates range from 30% to 65% depending on the type of business.

Since these abandoners “almost purchased,” they are some of your best prospects for conversion from visitors to “butts in seats.” In this case study you’ll learn how a tradeshow organized by RFID Journal was able to convert 22% of their abandoners into registrations by using the OpenMoves’ LassoBack platform!

RFID Journal is the world’s leading RFID news and information source and it runs multiple conferences every year. These conferences are paid events and are attended by thousands of interested professionals. Typically, when a person registers online they need to fill in a dozen or so fields relating to their personal preferences and conference tracks they want to attend.

The Challenge: During the registration process for the RFID Journal Live! event, a percentage of prospects (around the low end of industry averages) abandoned the registration forms for one reason or another. RFID Journal wanted to see if it could increase its conference registrations by utilizing the LassoBack platform to recover some of these abandoners prospects.

How Does LassoBack Registration Abandonment Work?

OpenMoves placed some invisible LassoBack tracking code on the RFID Journal web site as well as on the secure registration pages. The tracking code enables RFID Journal to track a visitor’s behavior from initial visit to registration. If the visitor leaves the registration pages before completing the registration, he or she is tagged as a “Registration Abandoner” and LassoBack stores the their activity details for a later recovery.

Triggered Email Series: Once you abandon the RFID Journal Live! registration page a series of two reminder emails are sent to you at a predetermined frequency based on your behavior. The first email is sent within 30 minutes of the abandonment with a customer service message, to the effect of, “We noticed that you started the registration process… Click here to complete your registration.” If you do not complete the registration after the first email, you are sent a second email reminder 5 days later with a 15% discount sweetener. Once you complete a registration you are not sent any more reminder emails so as not to irritate you.

Results: By implementing the LassoBack Registration Abandonment emails, 22.5% of those abandoners were converted into paid registrations! In other words, of every 100 RFID Journal LIVE! Prospects who abandoned the registration checkout process, 22 were recovered!

Reporting and insights: At a high level, you are interested in knowing how may people abandoned and how many were recovered. However, if you want to drill down further the OpenMoves’ LassoBack platform allows you to have infinite insight to see when and what a visitor did on your site as well which email was more effective in recovery. You can even map the question fields where each person abandoned and optimize your form and questions to minimize abandonment.

Why Do 1:1 Recovery Emails Work So Well?

The reason that registration abandonment emails work so well is because you are sending 1:1 emails to people who are already interested in your service and simply need a little “nudge.” Readers engage with these emails at a much higher level than regular email marketing campaigns. The RFID Journal triggered emails have a 3-4X higher open rate (46%) than the normal newsletters. And more importantly, the engagement is 3X higher with a Click-to-Open Rate of 48% (of those that opened the email how many went back to the registration page).

Do you use registration forms to sign people up to a trade show, a conference, for lead generation, or other marketing or fundraising events? Don’t let those that abandoned get away so easily! Talk to us about implementing LassoBack Registration Abandonment or Cart Abandonment on your site!

]]>10 Best Practices to Optimize Your Landing Pagehttp://openmoves.com/blog/10-best-practices-to-optimize-your-landing-page/
Tue, 03 Sep 2013 12:29:18 +0000http://openmoves.com/?post_type=blog&p=5753If you are driving traffic to your website and it’s all winding up on your home page that may be the reason why you’re not converting them. A home page isn’t usually the best landing page! Here are 10 tips to help you optimize your landing page for conversion.

]]>When prospects come to your website, do they know how to engage with you? Or do they feel like they’ve been dropped in the middle of Wal-Mart without a clue as to which aisle to visit or what sign to read because there’s so much information?

The issue is that you may not have a landing (or destination) page that is designed to convince visitors in just a few seconds to become a lead or a customer by providing you their information in return for an offer.

On average, over 70% of visitors to your site are new visitors, and a properly designed landing page will enable you to convert many of them to prospects.

So what’s a landing page?

And on a good landing page, less is more – it should contain your logo, a main image, a description of your service or product, perhaps a testimonial, and a form related to an offer or call-to-action (CTA). The offer could be a free trial, a free white paper, a free e-book, a free audit, a free Webinar … something that is compelling enough for the visitor to provide you with their information in exchange for that offer.

If you are driving traffic to your website and it’s all winding up on your home page that may be the reason why you’re not converting them. A home page isn’t usually the best landing page! And if you do have a landing page and you’re finding it’s not effective, perhaps it just needs a good tune-up.

Here are 10 tips on how to optimize your landing pages:

Build trust. Visitors should feel an atmosphere of trust where they can part with their information without feeling like they are risking their privacy. You can include testimonials, privacy statements, partners, and clients’ logos to reassure them.

Stay focused. Decide on a single objective for each of your landing pages. Don’t cram too many messages onto the page that may distract your visitor. Be succinct, be clear.

Be consistent. The title, the look-and-feel, and the content should be a continuation of the discussion you started where they first found you – in your PPC ad, your banner ad, your media campaign, or in a search engine (like Google).

Send out a clear message. Keep the page’s content short and sweet. Don’t complicate things. State what might be the visitor’s problem, discuss your solution, and deliver the goods in a professional manner.

Focus on that CTA. Your call-to-action is the most important part of your page as it tells your visitor what to do next after arriving on your site. What can you offer them in return for their personal information so you can market to them? A free trial account? A free report? A discount? A white paper? Depending on your business niche, come up with something that is worthwhile to your prospect.

Present a simple form to fill out. Every landing page needs a form to convert your visitor to a lead and it should be located in a spot that’s very visible. The Golden Rule is, shorter forms convert better. We recommend not more than five fields and not all need to be mandatory. Remember that this is just the beginning of your dating process; there will be plenty of time to learn more about your prospect later on.

Think branding. This may be the first time the visitor sees your brand. Include your logo and tag line as well as an image that relates to the offer.

Drop the navigation. Most successful landing pages remove the navigation bar from the page. We are trying to keep the visitor focused on the message, the offer, and the form. Don’t give them an opportunity to navigate to somewhere else.

Say “thank you.” After your prospect submits the form with their information, they ought to see a “thank you” page. Make it personal. Thank them for their time, and talk about next steps. And send them an automated, personalized email with content similar to the “thank you” page but with links to your site, your blog, and maybe an additional offer.

Keep an eye on your competitors. Learn from them. Check out their landing pages and offers. Your visitors may be visiting their landing pages as well, either before or after yours. Make sure yours is better!

If you need help designing and optimizing your landing pages check out our landing page process andplatform as well as a fewexamples.

]]>What are the Most Effective Tactics for Lead Generation?http://openmoves.com/blog/what-are-the-most-effective-tactics-for-lead-generation/
http://openmoves.com/blog/what-are-the-most-effective-tactics-for-lead-generation/#respondWed, 26 Jun 2013 11:37:08 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=5431A recent Lead Generation study published by Marketing Sherpa finds that SEO is the most effective tactic for lead generation. Email Marketing was almost as effective but easier to implement while PPC and educational webinars also performed well. We were not surprised to see the findings of this report as at OpenMoves we focus on SEO, PPC, and Email Marketing and we know how effective they can be for lead gen and e-commerce.

]]>A recent Lead Generation study published by Marketing Sherpa finds that SEO is the most effective tactic for lead generation but also one of the most difficult to implement. Email Marketing was almost as effective but easier to implement while PPC and educational webinars also performed well.

SEO- For those of you that practice SEO (Search Engine Optimization) it should come as no surprise that is was the most effective tactic for lead gen but also very difficult to implement, as you typically need technical skills and quality content to be effective.

Email marketing ranked very high for effectiveness and was the easiest to implement of all the tactics surveyed. We know from other surveys that email marketing has the highest ROI compared to other marketing channels given the low cost of implementation, ease of use, and measurable results.

Mobile Marketing-As we all know, mobile marketing is growing fast and complements email marketing, SEO, PPC and social media. Mobile was viewed as somewhat difficult to implement as you may need to create responsive email and web site designs and advertising is more of a challenge on the small screen. Usage of mobile marketing was still low given the difficulty and effectiveness but we expect to see the adoption rate increase quickly.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising was regarded as very effective for lead gen with a minor degree of difficulty. We know from our experience that if you have a decent promotion and you structure you landing page and campaigns correctly PPC can be extremely effective for lead generation and even more so for e-commerce.

Trade shows ranked very high for lead generation as you cannot replace a face-to-face meeting or a handshake with most online methods. From our experience, however, trade shows are difficult to plan, difficult to implement, and require substantial personnel, effort and budget. Tradeshow are an excellent lead generation tactic and should be chosen carefully based on budget, demographics and return on investment (ROI).

Webinars- A great opportunity for lead generation appears to be in educating your constituents using webinars. If you can produce some educational content in your market segment, webinars are now easier to put together and you can leverage them better than in-person seminars that require a physical location. We can vouch for their effectiveness for lead generation as we run frequent webinars on email marketing and search marketing.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/what-are-the-most-effective-tactics-for-lead-generation/feed/0Maximize Your ROI With Triggered Emailshttp://openmoves.com/blog/maximize-your-roi-with-triggered-emails/
http://openmoves.com/blog/maximize-your-roi-with-triggered-emails/#respondFri, 24 May 2013 20:39:45 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=5086What’s the best way to improve the results of your email campaigns? According to a recent benchmark survey by MarketingSherpa [see illustration], automated emails – also known as triggered emails – provide the biggest bang for your buck! That doesn’t …

]]>What’s the best way to improve the results of your email campaigns? According to a recent benchmark survey by MarketingSherpa [see illustration], automated emails – also known as triggered emails – provide the biggest bang for your buck!

That doesn’t mean ditching the e-newsletters you send to your clients and prospects; they will always appreciate fresh content. But sending regular e-blasts or e-newsletters to your entire database (also known as “batching and blasting”) requires ongoing creativity and content development.

Unlike your weekly or monthly e-newsletters, triggered emails are written once and then deployed throughout the year automatically based on certain criteria that you define, perhaps an event, a behavior, or lack of behavior. They can be one simple email or a drip series.

Let’s look at some of the more popular automated emails that you can use to maximize conversions with minimal effort:

The Welcome Email. The best time to develop a relationship with a prospect is when they just signed up to receive your e-newsletter or purchased an item for the first time — and you are “top of mind.” A welcome email is an automated email (or series of emails) sent automatically to a new subscriber at a predetermined frequency. Content can be a simple personalized “Thank You” with links to your blog and social media, or a series of emails introducing the reader to your services and company. Read more on creating a Welcome Series.

B2B Lead Nurture Drip. Say someone just filled out a form on your Web site for a free download of your software. Ideally a salesperson should follow up immediately. But whether they do or not, why not also send a series of three pre-written weekly emails that are personalized and specific to the person’s interest. They can describe, say, how to best use the software they just downloaded. You can sleep well knowing that anyone who fills out that form will get a lead nurture drip instantly — whether it’s midnight or your salesperson is on vacation.

Anniversary Drips. Perhaps you sell a product or service with an annual expiration or it’s a seasonal service like tax preparation. Consider automating a few simple reminders to trigger as you get close to term. Examples are automated reminders in January and February about your tax return service or a reminder 30 days before the end of the warranty to extend the agreement.

Birthday Emails. This is especially relevant to B2C firms that want to build long-term relationship with their constituents. Why not acknowledge their birthday and make a sale at the same time? An automated trigger with a birthday wish coupled with a discount is sent on the birthdate and then a second note two weeks later reminding them the offer is about to expire. You’ll generate goodwill and business!

Cart Abandonment. Typical e-commerce sites suffer from 70% cart abandonment. Whether you have a B2C or B2B site, win back as many as 20% of those “abandoners” with a three-part cart abandonment drip. Send an immediate email within 30 minutes of the abandonment as a reminder and then another one or two in subsequent days. You’ll be amazed how quickly you can increase your sales with this automated effort. Read more on Cart Abandonment emails.

Registration & Form Abandonment. This is more typical of B2B business where you may have an event registration (perhaps a tradeshow or webinar) and find that you have lots of browsers but few registrations. Deploy a three-part form abandonment email drip that is personalized and has more information on the event and why they should register now (maybe an expiration date, a discount, or the fact that there are only a few seats left). Typical conversion is is 10-20%.

Like the idea of automated email? Try these tips:

Plan your drip campaign and frequency carefully.

Remember to have evergreen content and promotions that are good for 6-12 months.

Use personalization wherever possible.

Automated emails don’t have to be fancy; short text emails are perfectly fine for many drip campaigns.

The first email should be sent immediately following the recipient’s behavior.

It can’t be stressed enough — the highest return in email marketing comes from some sort of automated triggered messages. They work tirelessly for you while you eat and sleep, and they make sure you stay in touch with your constituents, always focusing on conversion.

All the above functionality is available within the OM3 platform. If you want to see how easy it is to create a triggered email series please sign up for a free demo account and go to the Campaigns tab/Triggered Campaigns

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/maximize-your-roi-with-triggered-emails/feed/0Cart Abandonment Best Practiceshttp://openmoves.com/blog/include-shopping-carts-in-e-commerce/
Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:14:24 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=3669Did you know that, on average, between 65% and 75% of Web site visitors who place products into their online shopping carts abandon those carts and never make the purchase? And, as the holiday season grows nearer, the cart abandonment …

]]>Did you know that, on average, between 65% and 75% of Web site visitors who place products into their online shopping carts abandon those carts and never make the purchase? And, as the holiday season grows nearer, the cart abandonment rates can grow as high as 90 percent.

If you have an e-commerce site, do you know your cart abandonment rate – and how much potential business you’re leaving on the table each and every day?

The easiest way to determine your cart abandonment rate – the ratio between how many people place items in the cart vs. how many actually buy – is by checking Google Analytics or whatever analytics package you use.

But, you may ask, if these customers didn’t make the purchases the first time around, what will cause them to change their minds and return?

The answer is that by using a “drip” of carefully timed emails, called “cart abandonment triggers,” you can recover 10-20 percent of the money you almost lost. Here’s how to do it in five easy steps:

1. Understand the situation. Since the cart abandoners almost purchased, they are some of your best prospects for conversion from window shoppers to clients. There are many possible reasons why they didn’t buy – and it’s not necessarily because they no longer want the item. Maybe their phone rang … or the dog barked … or dinner was on the table … or the bathroom called. Here is what some 3,000 consumers told Forrester Research:

credit: Forrester Research

2. Consider using “cart abandonment triggers.”It’s an advanced email marketing technology – available from several enterprise-level vendors – that is one of the best ways to recapture your abandoners. Essentially, it enables you to send smart email reminders with a predefined frequency and with different messaging and promotions. You’ll need to add some custom tracking code to your website to enable the email marketing system to track visitors who enter your cart and whether they purchased.

3. Timing is everything. In order to maximize your conversions – from browsers to buyers – the best practice is to use three email “touches” after an abandonment. But, you’ll want to act fast. It’s important to send the first reminder email less than an hour after the abandonment so that your brand is still top of mind. Tests have shown that waiting 24 hours to send your first touch may negatively impact your conversion by more than 50 percent. The second email should be sent 24 hours after the first, and the third email four to six days later.

4. Be careful. You don’t want to antagonize a potential customer. If the abandoner purchases after the first email, you want to make sure your technology excludes the buyer from the second and third emails.

Similarly, don’t try to emulate an aggressive salesperson with your first message. Instead of saying “Hey, what happened to you?” a better approach is, “Oops, we noticed you left these items in your basket. Click here to complete your purchase or browse for more products.” Sound like you’re doing them a favor by reminding them that they didn’t complete their purchase. The second and third emails can slowly turn on the charm and include an incentive or promotion like free shipping or a discount on another item. But be careful not to train your customers to abandon their carts on purpose in order to get that incentive. Vary the incentives and make them predictable.

If you do it right, people won’t resent or be offended by your reminders and you should find that the open and click-through rates are much higher than on regular emails. Open rates of 40-60 percent are common and click-through rates are usually 15 percent with click-to-open rates higher than 35 percent.

5. Maximize your results. Be sure to test for different subject lines in your emails and make certain your brand is noticeable in the “from” line.

To maximize click-throughs, test various message elements, such as different layout approaches, a mix of images versus text, promo buttons and pictures of the actual products your customers left in the cart. In all cases, have a clear “reminder button” to complete the purchase that links directly to the cart.

The best thing about cart abandonment strategies is that they are relatively inexpensive. If you use an enterprise-level system, there’s a nominal monthly cost and a one-time cost to set up the cart abandonment functionality. Or, you can go to a third-party service provider and buy a software package that your information technology person can integrate into your email marketing system. Typically, it costs $500 per month or more.

Btw…if you are using an off the shelf e-commerce system such as Magento the integration for cart abandonment with OpenMoves may be even easier with our Magento connector.

But whatever it costs, you’re spending much less than the sales you lose from cart abandonment. For example, if 1,000 people abandon your product and the average cost of that product is, say, $500, getting back 10%, 20% or even 50% means retrieving a lot of money. And the effort to bring these clients back is almost negligible because, once you’ve set up the service, it functions automatically.

Bottom line: if you have an e-commerce site, using cart abandonment emails is a no-brainer – for a nominal effort and minimal cost, you can increase your sales and profits many times over! Contact us to evaluate the return you may see from using this amazing technology.

]]>Smartphone Update: iPhone vs Android Open Rateshttp://openmoves.com/blog/smartphone-showdown-how-android-vs-iphone-effects-your-email-results/
http://openmoves.com/blog/smartphone-showdown-how-android-vs-iphone-effects-your-email-results/#commentsSat, 06 Apr 2013 16:52:38 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=4723The only thing more remarkable then the explosion of mobile technology, is the rapid speed in which it has happened. Did you know that the number one usage of smartphones is to read emails! Yes, smartphone owners are more likely …

]]>The only thing more remarkable then the explosion of mobile technology, is the rapid speed in which it has happened. Did you know that the number one usage of smartphones is to read emails! Yes, smartphone owners are more likely to read emails than make calls or check their Facebook status.

iPhone vs Android Email StatsWhen it comes time to review your email marketing stats, you may notice that iPhone users typically show higher email open rates than Android phones. Typically we can see 2x-10x more iPhone opens than Android opens. Is this because there are more iPhone users ? Not quite. Android phones have larger market share in the US (see table ) and even higher globally. Then how does this make sense?

The key reason is that iPhones have their images turned on as a default while Android phones have images turned off by default. As you probably know, email marketing vendors (including OpenMoves) track opens by using a hidden pixel placed in an HTML email in one of the images. Once the images are downloaded for the email, an open is registered and reported. This clearly skews the opens data for an email where the images were not downloaded or if the email was a text version.

If you compare iPhone and Android click-through rates (clicking after the email has been opened) the data is more consistent, as click-throughs are registered the same way in both operating systems.

Check Your ResultsWhen you review your stats, take a look at your openers and clickers and check the % of users on a mobile device (example screen shot from OpenMoves OM3 Platform). Whether you are a b2b or a b2c firm, you will continue to see an increase in your mobile readers as smartphones become more prevalent.

Mobile Optimization
A few quick tips for mobile viewing:

Make sure subject lines and titles are mobile friendly (shorter is better)

And maybe experiment with responsive designs that can render the email based on screen size (its like having two designs for the same email). This is also a good reminder to design your emails with a good text to image ratio and make sure you have a readable and succinct text version of the email for those readers that do not download images. And before sending, make sure to test your design for mobile rendering, and check if the destination page (whether your home page or a landing page) is well designed for mobile viewing, meaning short and succinct with large buttons (so you don’t need to “pinch” the screen).

If you need some help understanding your statistics or need help with your new mobile friendly campaign give us a holler.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/smartphone-showdown-how-android-vs-iphone-effects-your-email-results/feed/1Your 2013 Email Marketing Checklisthttp://openmoves.com/blog/your-2013-email-marketing-checklist/
http://openmoves.com/blog/your-2013-email-marketing-checklist/#respondTue, 15 Jan 2013 18:49:15 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=3977Whether you are new to email marketing or a savvy sender with lots of opens and clicks, take a step back and think through your 2013 strategy. Here’s a quick checklist to get more results out of your email campaigns. …

]]>Whether you are new to email marketing or a savvy sender with lots of opens and clicks, take a step back and think through your 2013 strategy. Here’s a quick checklist to get more results out of your email campaigns.

Is the primary goal top-of-mind branding or driving more traffic to your web site, or is it driving sales and retention for your e-commerce site? Define your key goals, decide on the key metrics, and choose the right vehicle: newsletter, e-blast, drip campaign, etc… and get to work.

2) Adopt Active List Management for Growth Tactics

Make sure it’s extremely easy and enticing to subscribe to your email list from your web site, blog and Facebook. Use a simple and inviting call-to-action on every page and consider offering a promotion if appropriate. Only ask for the minimum amount of personal data (email, first name, and maybe birthday if B2C) and make it ridiculously easy to sign up. If you feel a bit more aggressive, consider a subscription pop-up on your web site.

3) Optimize Key Elements of Your Email Design

Does the design reflect your branding and web site? Are there clear calls-to-action? Is there a pre-header? Are there numerous links in every email to your web site? Is there an easy way to unsubscribe? Check your analytics and if many of your readers are reading your emails on a smartphone, consider a mobile-friendly design, narrower, without sidebar, and with big CTAs to eliminate the “pinching” effect.

4) Check for Cross-Platform Renderability

How well does your email render across the most common readers? Check your analytics and test your design on the top 4-5 email readers (Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, etc..) and browsers (Explorer, Firefox, Chrome,…). Do you include a visible link to a web version and a text version that’s informative when images are turned off?

5) Maximize Inbox Deliverability

Send your emails from a dedicated email domain and adhere to DMARC guidelines. Use a “friendly from address” to boost open rates and test different names to maximize results (i.e. sales people, CEO, news@, etc…). Are your subject lines putting your readers to sleep? Keep them enticed and informed and run some A/B tests for best results. Have you tried resending to non-openers a few days later with a different subject line?

6) Don’t Forget Engaging Content!

You know that your content needs to be engaging and informative. Newsletters should be full of case studies, tips and best practices, industry updates, events, etc…. Whether it’s a B2B newsletter or a sales blast, if the calls-to-action lead to a landing page, make sure the page is “sticky” and concise with an easy-to-fill form. If you have a blog or a content rich web site, link your email articles with a “Read More” to drive more traffic and engagement toy your web sites.

7) Integrate Email and Social Media

If you have a social presence make sure you have clear “Follow Us” icons in a consistent place in your email. Consider only highlighting the most important social media icons that are relevant to your business (i.e. FB and Twitter for B2C and LinkedIn and Twitter for B2B). Separate the “Share” icons from the “Follow Us” icons and make them look different. The share buttons are typically placed at bottom left of the email next to Unsubscribe icons. If you have a Blog make sure you link to it from the email articles and from a dedicated icon.

8) Do NOT Neglect Reporting and Testing

When was the last time you reviewed your analytics, and looked at the best and worst performing campaigns? When was the last time you did an A/B test on a FROM address, a subject line, or a call-to-action? Don’t feel guilty, but get into a routine for 2013 of scanning your monthly or quarterly results and running some tests for optimizations. If you use a full service firm to send your email, ask them to push reports to you and recommend some tests to maximize results.

9) Is It Time For Automation?

The beauty in email automation is that it generates results for you while you are sleeping, or trying to sleep. It requires a bit of planning, but it’s extremely effective and is guaranteed to have a very high ROI. Consider a basic “Welcome” email series, or a birthday email or an automated drip campaign to a prospect after they signed up for a software demo or downloaded a white paper…etc. A very effective form of automation is Cart Abandonment and Browse Abandonment emails- these email will help you convert web browsers to clients with timely reminders based on prospects’ your web behavior.

If you want to maximize your Lead Generation try “form abandonment” triggers, or if you have an eCommerce site, Cart Abandonment triggers. And lastly, if you use a CRM such as Salesforce or MS Dynamics, integrate your email marketing with the CRM to provide your salespeople with information that can increase your sales.
If you need any help optimizing your strategy for 2013 give us a holler. Click here to print out our one page 2013 Email Marketing Checklist.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/your-2013-email-marketing-checklist/feed/0Improve Your Conversion Rate – 7 Best Tips of 2012http://openmoves.com/blog/improve-your-conversion-rate-7-best-tips-of-2012/
http://openmoves.com/blog/improve-your-conversion-rate-7-best-tips-of-2012/#respondThu, 20 Dec 2012 16:46:55 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=3855As the year is coming to a close we wanted to share with you our most popular blog posts of the year on improving your conversion rate. These top posts of 2012 look at how to best use email, PPC, …

]]>As the year is coming to a close we wanted to share with you our most popular blog posts of the year on improving your conversion rate. These top posts of 2012 look at how to best use email, PPC, and SEO and good web design principles as well, to improve your conversion rate. You can take this any way you want as a “conversion” in our work can be somewhat of a religious experience in converting a non-believer to a believer, a browser to a prospect, or a prospect to a client. And then, once the initial conversion takes place, how do you keep them coming for more?

So here are 7 great tips on how to get more leads and more sales using email marketing, search engine optimization, pay-per-click and social media. Pick the 3 you like the most and build them into your 2013 plan.

Whether you are B2C or B2B it may be time to experiment with Facebook and LinkedIn PPC. You get tons of free impressions for your brand and you may even get some leads and sales: 3 ways to start advertising on Facebook.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/improve-your-conversion-rate-7-best-tips-of-2012/feed/030% of Ecommerce Repeat Purchases Come from Email Marketinghttp://openmoves.com/blog/30-percent-ecommerce-repeat-purchases-from-email-marketing/
http://openmoves.com/blog/30-percent-ecommerce-repeat-purchases-from-email-marketing/#respondThu, 04 Oct 2012 10:22:24 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=3262“Ecommerce businesses should concentrate more of their efforts on traditional online marketing tactics like search and e-mail rather than social media,” declared a September Forrester report (“The Purchase Path Of Online Buyers In 2012”), after determining “that less than 1% …

]]>“Ecommerce businesses should concentrate more of their effortson traditional online marketing tactics like search and e-mail rather than social media,”declared a September Forrester report (“The Purchase Path Of Online Buyers In 2012”), after determining “that less than 1% [of orders] could be traced back to social networks like Facebook or Pinterest.”

Forrester advises: “For repeat shoppers, e-mail is the most effective sales influencer: Nearly a third of purchases from repeat customers initiated with an e-mail. As such, businesses should up their efforts to collect e-mail addresses, and tailor their e-mail marketing messages to each recipient’s device and prior purchase behavior.”

So if you have an ecommerce business ask yourself if you are taking full advantage of e-mail marketing to increase your sales and profits. Admittedly, it takes a bit of time, focus, strategy, and ongoing testing to get the results – but the ROI is clearly there. We know this well from our ecommerce clients, but it’s nice to get it confirmed from a reputable third party like Forrester.

A few common tactics to get the most out of your ecommerce emails:

Don’t Treat Them All the Same

Are you sending “batch-and-blast” type emails where you are treating all of your database the same? When was the last time you segmented out those that did not purchase or engage in the last 6 months or a year? Or sent a different message to those that just purchased? Do it and watch you sales increase!

Set-up Cart Abandonment Emails

If you have a typical ecommerce site you are probably experiencing at least a 70% cart abandonment rate. Can you afford to let all those potential buyers disappear? You can capture some of them. With cart abandonment emails you may be able to convert 10-15% of these prospects to clients! The key to cart abandonment is a tight integration with your ecommerce platform and an ability to send real-time emails when someone abandons, and then follow up with 3-4 more reminders.

Use Triggered Emails

In addition to automated cart abandonment triggers you can easily automate a “Welcome Campaign” for new subscribers to your email list, or following a purchase, with an offer to “Like” you on Facebook and receive a discount on your next order. If you sometimes have items out of stock, automate a “back-in-stock” trigger to get those prospects back and purchase. There are numerous other ideas you can explore with automated emails.

The Forrester article mentioned a few other very interesting data points that are not related to email marketing:

Following direct visits to ecommerce web sites, organic search (SEO) and paid search (PPC) were responsible for more than 29% of new customer transactions.

Social media is effective as an engagement platform and an influencer but direct correlation to transactions is still a way off. The study saw less than 1% of transactions linked to social media.

The study focused on larger ecommerce sites and as such small businesses may have different results. Here’s some additional information from a Mashable article discussing this report.

So if you want to maximize your e-commerce sales concentrate your efforts on utilizing search marketing and email marketing advanced features. Give us a holler to set up a cart abandonment program or drive more traffic to your site using SEO and PPC.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/30-percent-ecommerce-repeat-purchases-from-email-marketing/feed/0When You Need To Say You Are Sorryhttp://openmoves.com/blog/when-you-need-to-say-you-are-sorry/
http://openmoves.com/blog/when-you-need-to-say-you-are-sorry/#respondThu, 13 Sep 2012 16:34:43 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=3094Running a business also involves making mistakes with your clients. Here’s a good example of a small storm GoDaddy had this week and how they handled the apology using email. This is their response to Monday’s hack/outage and an apology …

]]>Running a business also involves making mistakes with your clients. Here’s a good example of a small storm GoDaddy had this week and how they handled the apology using email.

This is their response to Monday’s hack/outage and an apology example you can use when your company has a “snafu”. A nice proactive explanation letter coming and signed by the CEO and providing a credit to those that opened and clicked.

Sending this email rather than just giving every one of their clients a credit is clever. They can verify your email address, increase deliverability as you’ll probably open this kind of an email . If I put my cynical hat on I am sure there are many customers with small/inactive sites who “slept through” the outage and probably didn’t even know their sites were down, or by the time they found out everything was restored. So yeah, they probably want to get away with paying out as little as possible and see who was truly affected by who responds.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/when-you-need-to-say-you-are-sorry/feed/0Email Marketing Still King of ROIhttp://openmoves.com/blog/email-marketing-king-of-roi/
http://openmoves.com/blog/email-marketing-king-of-roi/#respondThu, 26 Jul 2012 12:12:22 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=2943Email isn’t as sexy a communications platform as it once was, you say. That may be true. It has, in fact, become a very mature platform that may not have the pizzazz of social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and …

]]>Email isn’t as sexy a communications platform as it once was, you say. That may be true. It has, in fact, become a very mature platform that may not have the pizzazz of social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on.

You may be convinced it’s time to shift your marketing budget entirely from email to social media. But that, my friend, would be a mistake.

The reality is that social media is getting all the hype, it’s what everyone is talking about and, yes, there’s some revenue to be made there. But the medium that has proven itself over and over, and the place where the biggest return on investment exists, is still email marketing.

And there are some metrics to prove it.

According to the Direct Marketing Association, for every dollar you spend on email marketing, there’s a $40.56 return – the highest of all comparable media and the biggest bang for the buck. Search returns $22.24, Internet display advertising returns $19.72, mobile returns $10.51 and social networking returns $12 for each dollar spent.

In terms of sales, the DMA says that email generated $67 billion in 2011 compared to $32 billion for social media. This year, email marketing is expected to generate about $82 billion, up 22.3 percent from last year, compared to $39 billion for social media, up 21.9 percent from last year.

That means that email marketing produces more than twice the revenue while being almost four times more efficient than social media.

And there are more interesting facts. According to Nielsen:

Today there are 900 million Facebook accounts globally. That’s a huge number, but it’s only a third of the 2.9 billion email accounts that exist.

About 50 percent of people check their email multiple times per day while about 13 percent check it hourly.

Email is the top activity on smartphones; 60 percent of users check their emails while watching a TV program.

Every day, 294 billion emails are sent, while only 172 million people check their Facebook accounts.

Lastly, email is by far the most pervasive activity on the mobile Internet. As this Nielsen chart shows, the majority of every mobile Internet hour is spent in email – 25 minutes on email versus 6 minutes on social networks or blogs.

Meanwhile, a recent Forrester report called email marketing a mature channel that is alive and in constant development with new innovations and trends, and continuous growth both in terms of spending as well as actual volume.

Our prediction is that both email and social media marketing will continue to grow and, over time, most likely they will become more and more integrated. Currently, when you send out an email marketing message, it’s very easy for readers to share it to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Soon, new tools will enable marketers to write one message to email and to social media without the need to switch platforms.

In the meantime, our best advice is this: If you’re not doing any online marketing today, start with a good updated website. Then invest in email marketing, followed by a blog. And lastly, focus your budget on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ – in that order.

You can’t go wrong with email marketing. It’s the glue that should hold together your online communications with your prospects and customers. It’s the most inexpensive, most commonly used platform by all ages and all demographics.

Social media may be creating a lot of hype, but it’s email that is generating revenue.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/email-marketing-king-of-roi/feed/0iPhone vs. Android Email Open Rateshttp://openmoves.com/blog/iphone-vs-android/
http://openmoves.com/blog/iphone-vs-android/#respondThu, 12 Apr 2012 16:58:13 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=2665When you review your email marketing stats have you noticed that iPhone users typically show higher email open rates than Android phones? Given that Android phones have 3X more market share in the US and globally how does this make …

]]>When you review your email marketing stats have you noticed that iPhone users typically show higher email open rates than Android phones? Given that Android phones have 3X more market share in the US and globally how does this make sense?

One key reason is that iPhones have their images turned on as a default while Android phones have images turned off by default. Email marketing vendors track opens by using a hidden pixel placed in an HTML email. Once the images are downloaded for the email, an open is registered and reported. This clearly skews the opens data as for an email where the images were not downloaded or if the email was a text version.

If you compare iPhone and Android click-through rates (ie., after the email has been opened) the data is more consistent, as click-throughs are registered the same way in either format, in both operating systems.

So keep this in mind as you review your stats and take this into consideration before you jump to the wrong conclusions.

This is a good reminder to design your emails with a good text to image ratio and make sure you have a readable and succinct text version of the email for those readers that do not download images. If you need some help understanding your statistics or need help with your new campaign give us a holler.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/iphone-vs-android/feed/010 Things I Learned at the Email Live Conferencehttp://openmoves.com/blog/email-live-conference/
http://openmoves.com/blog/email-live-conference/#respondThu, 22 Mar 2012 10:03:53 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=2559Yesterday I attended the Email Live conference in NYC and listened to lots of email experts and wanted to share with you a few pearls. Email is alive and well To me it’s obvious that email marketing is very much …

Yesterday I attended the Email Live conference in NYC and listened to lots of email experts and wanted to share with you a few pearls.

Email is alive and well
To me it’s obvious that email marketing is very much alive, but many had to provide facts and figures on how more people use email than any other communication method and that there is no age gap on email usage. Also, Facebook sends more email than anyone else. No surprise: email marketing still provides the best ROI.

Wake up your inactives
When was the last time you segmented and cleaned out those that did not engage in the last 6 months or a year? Do it. Sending emails to those that did not open will impact your inbox deliverability (some ISPs penalize you for sending lots of emails to people that do not engage) and cost you more money. So separate them and start a re-activation campaign.

Pull the trigger
Lots and lots of discussion on how important triggered emails are and whether you are B2B or B2C you should move in that direction and don’t just “thrust and blast”: cart abandonment, form abandonment, welcome series, re-engagement, back in stock…automation that will significantly impact your return.

Cart abandonment
Case study by Birkenstock Central (yep, shoes) raised online revenue from email from 5% to 18% using cart abandonment, back in stock, and welcome email series. Key to cart abandonment is the timing for the first email (3 hours in their case) and a subsequent email drip. Birkenstock had 17% conversion-to-sale on 3 triggered emails and when they added 2 more the conversion did not drop! This approach requires strategic thinking and a bit of hand holding with your email service provider to manage, but if you are an e-commerce site and you are not doing this, you are leaving money on the table.

Mobile ready
More and more readers are viewing your email on their mobile device (almost 50% of every hour on PDA is spent on reading email). Be aware of subject lines and titles (shorter is better), test your design for mobile rendering, and most importantly make sure the destination page (whether your home page or a landing page) is well designed for email, meaning short and succinct with large buttons (so we don’t need to “pinch” the screen) or send to a mobile page.

Grow your list in mobile apps
Mobile is huge, and if you believe your prospects are active on mobile apps (on iphones, androids, ipads, etc…) there are services that will allow you to advertise on these apps to subscribe to your email campaign. The beauty is that you only pay for the signup, so you get free impressions. Sort of like Google Adwords but for mobile apps. One company that presented this was Pontiflex.

Subject lines
An old “subject” to bring up but I heard a cute acronym to remind yourself before you send: CURVE ( Curiosity, Urgency, Value, Emotion). Also keep in mind shorter subject lines if you are focusing on mobile.

Single or double opt-in
Many asked about the need for double opt-in vs single opt-in. Double opt-in means that you need to click on the email verification you receive after signing up to a list. The majority of experts said no need today for double opt-in as long as you respect your reader with meaningful, relevant emails that are easy to unsubscribe from. If you want to be super conservative then take into account that you may see a 20-40% drop in subscribers with double opt-in.

Appending services
Should you use appending services or not. The majority were against it as results are generally poor in terms of opens, clicks, and conversion. However, if you are going to use an appended list (whether you rent or purchase) see if you can pay by CPA (cost per action) and to be safe use a different email “from address” and maybe even a different domain. The landing page is key to conversion on appended lists, so make sure you design one specifically for this purpose. Keep in mind that inbox deliverability on an appended list can be as low as 15-50%.

Video in email
Is it time yet? I don’t think so based on what I heard. Playing actual video within your email is possible, but very dependent on what your reader is using as an email client. If they’re using an iPhone, android or iPad or other devices that run HTML5 then it’s possible. But if you are using Outlook and other email clients forget it. Video is great to increase click through and engagement, but for now I would recommend to stick to a static image of the video in your email with a click to play and redirect to where the video is hosted.

Bottom line is that email marketing is still one of the best vehicles to stay in touch with your base for generating leads and revenue. If you need a hand figuring this out, give us a holler.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/email-live-conference/feed/0How to Increase Your Open Rate by 50% with the Flick of a Switchhttp://openmoves.com/blog/increase-your-open-rate/
http://openmoves.com/blog/increase-your-open-rate/#respondWed, 07 Mar 2012 13:38:54 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=2506Is resending an e-newsletter or an e-blast good practice? The simple answer is YES and it can be as easy as flicking a switch. Resending an email to those recipients that did not engage with you is a great tactic …

Resending an email to those recipients that did not engage with you is a great tactic and will get you results – and the ROI can be amazing. Depending on your business and email marketing strategy you will typically see unique open rates in the range of 10%-30% (let’s say an average of 20% for this discussion). So on a given day 20% of your subscribers are opening your email and engaging, but what about the other 80%? These 80% non-openers are obviously different every time and may not be opening your email for a variety of reasons: Some might just be too busy at that moment, others not excited by the subject line, on a mobile phone on way back to the office, not interested in your service (but too lazy to unsubscribe), etc.… The point is that many of them would have opened the email at another time and maybe with a different subject line and this is where resending shines.

Why Resending Email Works

Based on our experience with our clients (B2B and B2C) we typically see resend results of greater than 50% of the original email. So if the original email had a 20% open rate the resend may be around 10%. That’s terrific because, with almost no additional effort, you just increased your opens and engagement by 50%!

Here are a Few Email Resending Guidelines

Resend to those that did not open or in some cases those that did not click (for example: invitations email)

Resend within 1-5 days after sending the first email. Review your analytics to see when most of your readers drop off the opens and establish a policy.

Resend with a different subject line. This is smart to do for those that noticed the email and subject line. Change it up to be more effective and so as not to sound repetitive.

Establish a resend policy as part of your email marketing strategy and test for results, best timing, and subject lines.

How To Get Started With Email Resending/ReMail

OK, now that you are convinced that resending is good for you, let’s move to the How. If you are using OpenMoves’s OM3 it’s as simple as flicking a switch.

Just before you send your initial email you are asked whether you’d like to resend (or ReMail as we call it in the OM3 Platform), and if so, when and with which subject line. So in seconds you have set up your automated resend campaign and probably increase your open rates by 50%!

To learn more about email resending strategy or how to use this great feature in your platform give us a holler.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/increase-your-open-rate/feed/0Email Marketing Best Practices for e-Commercehttp://openmoves.com/blog/best-practices-ecommerce/
http://openmoves.com/blog/best-practices-ecommerce/#respondWed, 25 Jan 2012 22:34:23 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=2430Wonder what online retailers are using to generate more business using their email marketing? In a recent research study, Return Path, an email certification provider, evaluated 45 different online retailers with some interesting findings. Their staff purchased products and signed …

]]>Wonder what online retailers are using to generate more business using their email marketing? In a recent research study, Return Path, an email certification provider, evaluated 45 different online retailers with some interesting findings. Their staff purchased products and signed up to the retailers’ email marketing and documented the results.

Here are some interesting findings:

All retailers sent an order confirmation within 24 hours. But only 33% had promotional messages within the confirmation.

31% of companies added purchasers to their email lists without requesting permission.

Only 15% of the companies used data they received during the purchase to target their subsequent messaging.

40% included promotional content in their transactional messages.

58% of the retailers sent the same first promotional email to buy­ers as to inquiries.

Just 25% of companies asked for feedback from buyers as surveys (9%) or product reviews (16%)

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/best-practices-ecommerce/feed/0New LinkedIn Features for B2B Businesseshttp://openmoves.com/blog/linkedin-features-for-b2b/
http://openmoves.com/blog/linkedin-features-for-b2b/#respondTue, 18 Oct 2011 12:44:55 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=2189Are you using your company’s LinkedIn page effectively? If you are a B2B business you may have a company page but you should now step it up with some new functionality that was recently released by LinkedIn. You can now …

]]>Are you using your company’s LinkedIn page effectively? If you are a B2B business you may have a company page but you should now step it up with some new functionality that was recently released by LinkedIn. You can now post relevant updates on your company page – making it easier to connect with your clients, prospects, and referral sources – and monitor results with some shiny, new reporting tools.

These new features allow you to update news directly from your company page just as you would on your personal page. Talk about new services, product releases, webinar and seminar invitations, white papers, etc… Best practice it to keep your company updates short and relevant and link them to relevant pages on your blog, Web site or YouTube.

You’ll be able to track impressions and engagement. For example, an update with 1,200 impressions and 0.31% engagement means that the status was viewed 1,200 times and 0.31% of the total impressions engaged the member enough to like, comment, or share. These numbers update daily.

Here’s some information about the new features and a few examples from Rackspace Hosting.

Rackspace Hosting is using updates to engage with their audience with relevant information such as a blog article about 10 questions to ask… And it’s linked to their blog.

Learn more about the LinkedIn features for company updates and step up your LinkedIn activity and you’ll be rewarded.

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/linkedin-features-for-b2b/feed/0Email & Search – Who is Doing it?http://openmoves.com/blog/email-search/
http://openmoves.com/blog/email-search/#respondWed, 31 Aug 2011 15:04:42 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=1890Are email and search still as important as you think? With all the hype about social media let’s take a look at some of the basic online usage for email and search. A recent report from Pew Internet survey finds …

]]>Are email and search still as important as you think? With all the hype about social media let’s take a look at some of the basic online usage for email and search. A recent report from Pew Internet survey finds that 92% of online adults use search engines to find information on the Web, including 59% on a typical day (compared to 29% in 2002).

Among online adults, 92% use email, with 61% using it on an average day. This places search and email at the top of the list of most popular online activities among U.S. adults.

Search

Whether you use Google or Bing or other search engines don’t you feel like you are always searching for something online multiple times per day? So let’s take a look at the stats. As expected, search is most popular among the young adult internet users (age 18-29), of which 66% use it on a typical day. But interestingly, even 37% of older online users (65+) will search on a typical day.

Adults who have higher education and earn more are searching more often. Typically college and the highest income adults make more use of search engines to gather information when compared with other adults, as the table below shows.

Email

Email is similar to search in that the youngest online adults, the college-educated, and those in the highest income categories are more likely to engage in the activity. Interestingly, we see more avid use of email in older adults than search. These demographic differences are more apparent when one looks at email use on a typical day.

Moreover, while overall email use is comparable across white, African-American and Hispanic online adults, internet use on any given day is not. White online adults are significantly more likely than both African-American and Hispanic online adults to be email users on a typical day (63% v. 48% v. 53%, respectively).

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/email-search/feed/0Anatomy of an Email Blasthttp://openmoves.com/blog/anatomy-of-an-email-blast/
http://openmoves.com/blog/anatomy-of-an-email-blast/#respondMon, 18 Jul 2011 21:10:12 +0000http://blog.openmoves.com/?p=1634Want to convert readers into clickers and clients? Here are some best practices for B2C that may turn email into business. Purity Products, a NY based provider of supplements, are active email marketers. So let’s talk about some of the key elements in their design:

1.Pre-Header: The pre-header is typically a short description or teaser of the email offer. It is sometimes above the email and sometimes within the top of the email. In this case the pre-header is in the top right “Get 30% off with Promo code…” Always try to use a pre-header as it allows for an easy click to a promo or an article from the top of the email and especially useful when a reader views it in a preview mode.

]]>Want to convert readers into clickers and clients? Here are some best practices on how to design a B2C email blast that turns email into business.

Purity Products is a NY based provider of quality supplements. They are active email marketers and send a variety of emails to their client and prospect base. So let’s talk about some of the key elements in their design:

Pre-Header: The pre-header is typically a short description or teaser of the email offer. It is sometimes above the email and sometimes within the top of the email. In this case the pre-header is in the top right “Get 30% off with Promo code…” Always try to use a pre-header as it allows for an easy click to a promo or an article from the top of the email and especially useful when a reader views it in a preview mode.

Header: The header is typically your company’s logo and the main value proposition. Typically best to have prominently at the top left of the email which is the 1st place a readers’ eye goes.

Navigation: Here’s a good example of creating an email that mimics the look and feel of the web site. In this case, the navigation is a subset of the website navigation and is appropriate for the email. The purpose is to give subscribers an easy choice to click-thru on what interests them and segment themselves. If I am not interested in the promotion, I may choose to click on Best Sellers or Specials. You’ll be surprised how well this works when it is carefully mapped to relevant pages on your site.

Call to Action: Make the call to action “jump” out at the reader yet maintain a classy look. See how the orange “Get Your Discount Now” button is very pronounced but at the same time well integrated into the email design. This typically will receive the largest percentage of clickers.

Primary Message: The example here is templated. Every promotion the includes this same layout but with a different primary message and image. It’s not easy to come up with the right image and copy that delivers a clever message such as the “secret sale”. When you develop your campaign make sure the image and copy go hand in hand. Take special note that the younger woman is looking at the key message and her eyes point to where you want the reader to read.

Secondary Navigation: What’s the point, here? Isn’t the primary navigation enough? Well, you want to provide a reader with a variety of options to engage with your company. In this case, the email highlights only one product out of many. We want to remind the reader of the other choices. Note the breakdown of supplement type on the left and the category type on the right. Clicking on these links helps to segment reader’s interests, and this data may be useful in creating triggered campaigns or dynamic content email. For example, a click on “Brain Health” could generate a follow up email

Secondary Messages: In this case the secondary messages are there to “tone down” the promotional aspect of the email. They are testimonials from clients and physicians, but otherwise encourage inbound traffic to the website.

Footer: A footer is a very important element of the email. It’s a great place to include social networks, contact information and a promotional disclaimer. The footer is also where you’ll provide unsubscribe and personalization options.

There’s a lot more to it and these guidelines will change based upon your business and the type of email you are sending (newsletter, special communication, invitation, etc…).

If you need a hand to come up with some winning designs, you know where to find us!

]]>http://openmoves.com/blog/anatomy-of-an-email-blast/feed/0Blogging and Email: Joined at the Hiphttp://openmoves.com/blog/blogging-and-email-joined-at-the-hip/
http://openmoves.com/blog/blogging-and-email-joined-at-the-hip/#respondSat, 09 Jul 2011 18:04:35 +0000http://174.121.152.9/~openmove/blog/?p=1353The toughest challenge in maintaining a blog and email marketing campaign is content, but take a strategic approach and think about them together: write it once and get two channels for the price of one!

]]>Social media marketing is about people and the journey from stranger to fan is built on rapport. As Dale Carnegie said, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

The toughest challenge in maintaining a blog and email marketing campaign is content, but take a strategic approach and think about them together: write it once and get two channels for the price of one!

A blog is the hub of your SEO and social campaigns while email marketing is the best channel to communicate with your subscribers. Your human readers as well as Google both love blogs but how best to drive traffic to the blog and get followers than with regular email campaigns?

Your blog should include current news, case studies, tips and best practices, industry updates, video testimonials or tutorials, and should entice readers to engage, comment and share. These same types of content are ideal for your newsletter. Why not use the newsletter as a roundup of various monthly blog posts where the newsletter has a few teaser articles with click-thrus to read more? Once the readers click to the blog they can engage with other related blog articles and subscribe for more. Include sufficient content in the teaser of your email newsletter so that readers understand the main idea of the article while the blog elaborates.

Integration and coordination of your blog and newsletter content strategies also leads to a positive branding impact. Focus on educating rather than selling. The newsletter and blog will nurture a broader relationship that leverages your branding with subscribers as well as prospects searching for keywords in your industry. Once you analyze which articles your email readers are clicking on you can adjust your content strategy accordingly, across the board.

Use the first few sentences from the blog article in your newsletter and link it up to the remaining content at your blog, or use an RSS link to automate the process. With traffic pointing to your blog, optimized website, or strategic landing page, the combination of blogging and email will continue to work for you month after month.

Blogging and emails together can transform strangers into fans. By maintaining the relationship, you will give your subscribers what they want and receive what you want in return!

If you need help setting up your blog or email campaign or integrating the two, give us a holler.